Believe in the Flowers.

Oh Come, All Ye Waist-Full!

2009-12-17T17:05:00.001-08:00

I believe that my dear friend Christy said it best, that in this wonderful season we whore ourselves out to get things we otherwise couldn't. I wouldn't go quite that far, but the statement is true enough to be applied here.

A week ago we were served with a notice stating that we had five days to pay off over $900 to our landlady; if we couldn't, our lease would be terminated. The thought of being homeless at Christmas with two little kids is absolutely terrifying, but we got our obligatory miracle and were able to pay off enough to satisfy them for now. It's a temporary fix, obviously, as we still do owe rent, but for now we aren't losing our house, and that's an improvement. I'm learning that life is very much about doing things one at a time and being patient, and I think I can be okay with that.

I also spent two very painful days off of my meds. For the record, I take 20mg a day of Lexapro, which is for depression and GAD (generalized anxiety disorder). I am one of many moms who are breastfeeding through antidepressants, and I would like to take this opportunity to remind all people that post-partum depression is very real, very painful, and needs to be treated, be it through medication or therapy or both. There is absolutely no shame in admitting that you need help, no matter what anyone else says. It's crucial that we keep reminding ourselves as mothers and women that we deserve to be happy and safe, too, and that part of maintaining that happiness and a sense of safety is admitting our need for assistance.

With that PSA over, let's move on. I can't say I'm a huge fan of the holiday season, as I've worked in retail for years now and have experienced the lowest points of humanity (think Black Friday). The crazies come out at this time of year, the people who otherwise hide in their padded cells all year. These are the people that will do anything they need to in order to save a couple of bucks, even if it means absolutely reaming an innocent employee or causing a massive amount of havoc. I have no idea how these people can sleep at night, knowing they've left an already-frazzled worker close to tears from dealing with said customer. The Christmas season proves, more than any other, that there are far too many psychotic soulless people out there. Remember that, next time you hassle an employee. They're human too!

For now, that's all. I'm posting from my phone, and it isn't comfortable or easy to type this much with your thumbs. I hope the holidays are finding all you relatively sane people happy, healthy, and in good cheer.

Makes My Brain Twitch

2009-12-04T22:28:00.001-08:00

Things in this household have been nuts.

We're making progress in small places. Gabe has been without a binkie for about a month now, and it only took about four days or so for him to more or less stop asking for it. I think that's pretty impressive, considering it was a habit 2 1/2 years in the making, and that it was a 24 hour-a-day need before this. Something in his brain clicked, the binkies have been thrown away, and he is now bink-free. We went cold turkey, which actually worked better than I thought it would. Our next big hurdles are potty training and getting him to sleep in his own room. We're kind of slacking off on the first for the sake of the bink being gone, and for the second. We don't want to make him go through a lot of changes at once, especially since we're working through some pretty bad behavior issues at the moment. This will make night five of sleeping in his own room, and for the last four nights he has been accompanied by a parent sleeping on his floor next to his bed. As you can imagine, that is an uncomfortable endeavor. Tonight, because Colin is at his game night, and I have to stay out in this room with Alex, he's spending his first night in his room completely alone.

This is working, to a degree. The problem is that he's still awake, and every half an hour or so, he wanders out of his room to stand in the doorway to the kitchen and call to me. A minute ago he came out to tell me that he had farted. I appreciated this information, of course, but it really didn't do me any good and I couldn't exactly help him with anything. I congratulated him, put him back into bed, kissed and hugged him, and came back out as he begged me to hold him. Sigh.

Things are going a little better with Alex. This kid can sleep through anything, I think, and once he's asleep he spends five hours or so not particularly caring where he's sleeping or who he's sleeping with. In the playpen, on the floor, on the couch, alone in another room - it doesn't make much difference to him. A hurricane could sweep away the state and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't affect him in the least.

I wanted to exclusively breastfeed Alex, but unfortunately I've resigned myself to a half-and-half lifestyle. At night he's nursed and during the day I'll nurse him off and on, but most of his nutrition comes from formula now. I feel like an ass about this for a number of reasons, but at the moment I have a lot more to concentrate on. I hate the mantra of "happy mom, happy baby" because I feel like it's an excuse for me to not try harder to work through our numerous problems, but at this point, it's the truth for me: I can't handle the stress I'm putting myself through when it comes to breastfeeding. So for now our half and half lifestyle will suffice, we'll survive, and everything will be okay.

Our finances are still a mess, as usual. I'm pushing Colin to find a new job, but he's slacking off pretty hard with it. To add insult to injury, his computer bit the dust today, and neither of us are positive he can fix it. A new computer, or at least parts to fix an old one, were not budgeted into our tax refund money, so I can't even say that if he can wait until then, that we can fix things. We have a lot of bills to pay off and other things that need to be purchased (like new glasses and shoes for him) before we can toss a computer onto the list. I'm going to see what I can do, but other obligations obviously will be dealt with first, and I hope that will be okay with him.

Beyond that, I'm pretty much going insane over here. I've begun sorting out the baby clothes, trying to figure out what no longer fits Alex and can be put away, what currently fits him, what will fit him later but doesn't fit Gabe, what fits Gabe now, and what doesn't fit Gabe yet. It's dizzying, and I can't find space for everything, much less keep the piles and bags of clothes straight in my head. Add onto that the fact that I'm attempting to sort through the mountains of clothes that Colin and I have collected, and it's just a disaster waiting to happen. I want to eventually go through everything and throw away the junk, then donate what can be donated (or, you know, maybe sell it to a thrift store - there are a couple of good consignment shops around). I know we won't be having any more kids for a while still, but I'm loathe to get rid of the baby clothes. Partially it's sentimental, but really, it just comes down to the fact that I'm no good at getting rid of things I know I could maybe use later on. I'm a pack rat, so sue me!

Well, it's nearly 1 AM. Gabe's still awake, Colin's still gone, and Alex is still asleep (thankfully). Unfortunately, for me to go to sleep I'm going to have to move Alex and probably wake him up. Off to another night of changing a baby, consoling a preschooler, and sleeping sitting up so I can nurse a baby and pass out as a pathetic lump of person.

Behind On Life

2009-10-13T14:57:00.000-07:00

No, really, I am.

Some time has passed since the last time I had a chance to actually use my computer and do anything online. When we first moved into this house, we didn't have a usable phone line and thus had no internet access. We survived without this valuable asset for some time, and only within the last two weeks have we been lucky enough to not only fix the phone line (although if it weren't for internet access, that wouldn't matter much) and have our services turned back on. Unfortunately, my dearly beloved had the internet turned back on over the phone and paid some $80 for the return of services that I hadn't anticipated or budgeted, so we're more than a little behind at the moment. He considered it part of a birthday gift to himself - I considered it a smack in the forehead.

Meanwhile, we're still in the same house, still doing all right. The place is an absolute disaster area all the same, a lingering result of the changing weather (I swear it has been cold and cloudy/raining for a week now) and a week-long visit by several of my in-laws for a wedding. Now that they're gone, this place is still a lingering mess, and I'm God-only-knows-how-behind on dishes and laundry. Never mind the fact that we need trash stickers to put our trash out for the city to take, and those stickers happen to cost money, so we've a mountain of trash that can only be put out a few bags at a time. To say that I'm somewhat grossed out by this would be an understatement: it's absolutely disgusting, but there's very little I can do about it.

On the plus side, we've done some work (okay, mostly Colin did the work) and Gabe's room is actually livable, instead of just being a mess of a storage room for toys. It's a big change, and it looks really nice. There are shelves in there, a CD player/radio, and his chest of drawers, although there isn't anything in them yet. Oops. His clothes are still in the midst of being sorted, and since I have nothing to sort the too-small clothes into at the moment, it's a disaster. Everything here seems to be a disaster.

As for the kids: Alex is desperate to move. He smiles and coos but hasn't laughed yet. He's a grouchy, grumpy, gassy baby at the moment, and the "gassy" portion of this tends to cause the other two issues, in my opinion. He has nearly rolled himself over once. Our sleeping arrangements still consist of me on the loveseat in the living room with Alex either sleeping on his stomach on my chest, or laying on his back on pillows beside me, with me sitting up, when I nurse him at night. Gabe sleeps in the bed with Colin still. The number of things Gabe can say are amazing, and every day he adds another few words to his vocabulary. He has formed relatively complete sentences, is obsessed with the alphabet and counting, and is currently capable of using a computer better than most adults I know. He can turn on and shut off both of the computers, can play several games, and is a fan of Spore, Unreal Tournament 2004, and Hellgate: London. He can turn on music, and do things he probably ought not to do - including finding porn on Colin's computer and referring to it as "the Mommy game" (I assume this is because he sees women and, unless they have a name he's aware of, they are "Mommy"). Ahh, that's my boy.

So yeah, there's work to be done. Are we doing great? Eh, I wouldn't say "great". But nobody's dead yet, and that's good, right?

Apologies

2009-08-23T13:58:00.000-07:00

Assuming that I have any readers, of course; most have probably forgotten about or given up on me by now.

Baby #2, Alexavier Oliver Wendell, made his way into the world at 12:49 AM on July 23rd, 2009. He was 9 lbs, 2 oz and 20.5" long. He arrived sunny-side up, with his cord wrapped around his neck twice, and as purple as hell. He's doing fine now, although breastfeeding has been absolute hell, and the thrush problems I thought we had developed over a week ago have finally escalated to a point that I think health professionals will finally start listening to me and acknowledging that yes, I might have an idea of what I'm talking about, dammit. I've thus far had numerous useless suggestions and alternatives presented by both Alex's pediatrition and my OB's nurse, including the usage of nipple shells and the suggestion that I might simply be engorged and to pump first. Lo and behold, over a week later, his mouth is full of white gunk that won't wipe out. I'm desperate to discontinue the formula we've been supplimenting with, but I know that until this thrush problem has at least started to be dealt with, we will need to continue with it. We are fully moved into our new home, although we still can't afford it, and our old apartment has been completely demolished. It's strange to drive by the old place and see nothing but piles of bricks and stones and know that our living room once stood there, our back porch was once right there .. You get the point. It's disconcerting, as it was the first real place we'd had together where we were happy for any length of time, even if we were still broke and still typically screwed.

For now, I say goodbye - I'm on my mother's computer as we are not only without phones at our house but also without the Internet, and her poor laptop can't handle much anymore. I intend on trying to nominate her for Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Wish me luck.

Where Did You Go, My Lovely?

2009-07-15T15:57:00.001-07:00

First, I promise that my absence hasn't been thanks to anything particularly interesting - certainly not thanks to the arrival of kid #2 (who seems to have decided that actually making his way into the world is far too strenuous of an activity to bother himself with; instead, he has signed a lease agreement with my uterus to remain there until preschool or thereabouts). At my last appointment, which was yesterday (I think?) my OB gleefully informed me during my first internal exam that I was 2 cm dilated, about 25% effaced, and that she was fairly sure she could feel his head (although he was "still high" and thus she couldn't be positive). I'd be lying if I said her joy wasn't lost on me - a mere two centimeters and a tiny amount of effacement, and a determination that she THOUGHT she could feel a head, was not particularly enough to keep me in a good mood. As of today, I am 39 weeks according to the due date given by my first ultrasound at about 24 weeks. My figuring (LMP dates) says July 16th, and the most recent ultrasound I had (a follow-up at 28 weeks because they couldn't get definitive pictures of his spine or brain thanks to bad positioning) said July 19th. So at the moment, I could be due right now, or be due the 12th of never and I'd never know any differently. Unfortunately, thanks to the kid's sheer size (I guestimated, at her behest, between 9 and 11 pounds; she giggled) she wants to start discussing induction possibilities at my next appointment next week, if I make it that long. I hope I don't, to be honest. It seems selfish, for sure, and I realize we still have a lot of things to complete at the house before it's livable and comfortable, but at the same time I'm starting to worry that my chances of an NCB are slipping away with every passing week. Here, a c-section is a guarantee of future surgeries for all children born to the unlucky mother, as the hospital has a strict ban on VBACs.

We have, however, moved. I won't get into the extreme details right now because to be honest, considering all of it still makes my head spin. Suffice to say that the majority of moving was completed in one night, with all of the big items - bed and desks included - making their way over in a single trip in a uHaul truck. It wasn't fun, and Colin worked his ass off.

When we have the internet back at our house, I'll update more - for now, know that we still have not had the new baby.

5:30

2009-06-16T03:33:00.000-07:00

Namely, it is 5:30 AM AGAIN and for some reason I am up. I'd make some kind of sarcastic comment about the sunrise, but it has been raining for several hours on my end of things and as such the only thing that's visible is a bunch of nasty-looking gray that I'm assuming is supposed to be clouds. This irritation (DO NOT LIKE) has coupled itself with our leaky roof, meaning that now, instead of just having water running down our walls at the most inopportune times (like, say, when Colin has his computer plugged in and running), we also get this painfully obvious "drip" sound.

The dripping, you see, is from the ceiling of the floor above us. Dripping down onto the drop-ceiling tiles that we've been blessed with. Only, it's dripping down onto ONE tile in particular, and said tile is beginning to sag and look generally displeased with the water that is collecting on it.

Naturally, this tile is the one DIRECTLY ABOVE Colin's computer. If it fell I can only imagine the amount of disgusting, moldy, sitting water that will dump itself onto his monitor, keyboard, computer, power strip - you know, anything and everything useful and irreplacible. Not to mention all of the shit on his desk that I'm fairly sure he doesn't want drenched with moldy water.

The solution to this is, of course, to have someone come in and fix the roof. Except our lease technically ends today (although we're being given the "right" to stay until our house has, uh, flooring and appliances, imagine that) and the bank probably couldn't care less at this point if the house was crumbling on top of us, as long as it wasn't, you know, something they could get sued for. So instead of fixing the problem, we have a leaking ceiling. I would hate to think about what the floor above us looks like - I'm actually trying not to - and instead am focusing completely on the fact that THIS IS SO FUCKING IRRITATING.

I kind of want to scream and cry for a while.

Lastly, for today, everybody go add to the 1000+ notes of congratulations: Dooce had her baby. Marlo Iris Armstrong (MIA! Yes!) is a badass of a newborn who had the audacity to arrive ON HER DUE DATE. Seriously. She is one cute kid.

Current Mood: Frustrated as Hell

2009-06-13T12:31:00.000-07:00

So a couple of days ago I started having some issues with swelling in my feet and ankles. This is incredibly normal for pregnancy, so I thought nothing of it. The next day I noticed that the swelling was capable of something called "pitting" - meaning that if I pushed a finger into my foot or ankle, I would leave a small indentation that remained for upwards of 30 seconds or so, or until I rubbed it out. Typically this is a sign to watch your sodium intake and monitor for further swelling elsewhere on your body (hands, face). By that night, I felt disgusting - a headache coupled with diarrhea and nausea that thankfully never turned into vomiting. I was exhausted and somewhat lightheaded, which led to me running to a local Hy-Vee to check my blood pressure (an unremarkable 130/62) - and at the behest of my husband and mother, the next morning I started making phone calls. It took the equivelant of several eons to finally get in touch with an overworked triage nurse who revealed to me, a couple of hours after the clinic I visit opened, that they were massively short-staffed. I was scheduled for an emergency appointment later that day with a doctor I had never seen or heard of, and told to keep my feet up and drink water until then.

My appointment was, at best, incredibly boring. I ended up waiting upwards of an hour just to be put back into an exam room, and once in, I had to wait another 45 minutes for the mystery doctor to show up. The highlight of my entire time there was when I attempted to give the obligatory urine sample and somehow managed to get my hand caught - resulting in the spillage of my own bodily fluids onto the back of my jeans. Sigh. I explained it away to the nurse who had been attending to me up until that point as nothing more than a simple accident - that I had put my pants down into a puddle of water on the floor in the tiny lab bathroom (the sink is directly next to the toilet in the world's best example of awkward positioning). I was too lucky that it didn't smell, and as soon as I got home I ripped my pants off and happily told Colin the same story I had told the nurse who had asked why I was trying to dry off my butt. Anyway, long story short, my blood pressure has not escalated to a dangerous point, despite my headaches and nausea. I drink plenty of water, so dehydration is not the cause. My heartrate is somewhat elevated, around 100 beats per minute, but my urine is clear of protein. Unfortunately, my feet are still swollen and a lot of the problems I started out with the other day still exist and are actually worse to some extents.

But none of this explains my frustration.

When I spoke to the doctor I saw, she told me that if I truly didn't feel well, and since the swelling and pitting was likely not going to go away, then other than a good pair of support hose the best I could do was stop working. My work conference call was switched from this morning to last night, so I emailed my supervisor to inform him that I would be stopping work earlier than expected. Of course, I'm an idiot and didn't give him a clear indication as to WHEN, but I thought I had implied that it would be ASAP - meaning that though I was scheduled to work today, I wouldn't be showing up to do so. My boss said last night on the call that he and I would discuss it today at some point, but gave no indication as to when, exactly. So I emailed him. No response. Called him this morning, left a voice mail, no response. Now I am stuck - do I go into work anyway today since I'm still technically scheduled and risk getting in trouble for having gone in if he has already removed me from the payroll temporarily, or do I not go in and risk getting in trouble because I was supposed to? I'm going to try to call him once more, but it has been agreed between Colin, my mother, and I that if I can't get a hold of him, I'm going to work this evening.

So, yes, I am frustrated - very frustrated. Sigh.

5 AM Comes Early

2009-06-07T03:07:00.000-07:00

Work beckons in just a few hours, and I've been up for two and a half hours now, struggling desperately with acid reflux problems that were kind enough to stop when my insomnia kicked in about an hour ago. I'd say I'm honestly not tired in the least, as when I got up originally the sky was dark but the birds had decided that 3 AM was a GREAT time to start making all sorts of ungodly noises. Now, the sky's getting lighter by the minute. I swore to myself an hour ago when it was still perfectly dark that I would crawl back into bed, in front of the air conditioner that's running steadily and optimistically on "fan" and the "fan" that is running on "medium" in a desperate attempt to keep at least one room of this apartment livably "cool" (and yes, I know that spellcheck says "livably" isn't a word, but it doesn't offer any options that make sense, so I'm leaving it).

Severe thunderstorm warnings have been popping up off and on for the last hour or so, all about 15 minutes to our north, although the rain itself is a guarantee that I'm only waiting for right now. Thankfully, it seems we'll be escaping the baseball-sized hail yet again. Needless to say I'm okay with that, seeing as how our windshield already has a crack we can't afford to repair at the moment, and shattered dents bigger than my fist seem like an added inconvenience that I have no intention of humoring. My phone is set up to receive weather alerts from various sources - mostly the incredibly vague, irritatingly slow-updated Weather Channel - and when I hear it make that lovely little dinging noise from over by the bed I take a moment to glance at my email. Yes, I get numerous weather alerts from multiple sources. When you feel like you're living every day in fear of tornadoes and other massively unpleasant weather events, you feel justified in being over-prepared - and constantly nervous and jittery. Anyway, I tend to know that if I'm getting messages before 9 AM, it usually isn't good - either someone's trying to inform me of some life-changing event that I probably didn't want to know about in the first place, or the weather is about to try to kill me and it's time to go into panic mode until I have satiated my need to know exactly what's coming, when, and how. The problem with the updates from The Weather Channel is that they send you county-specific warnings that boldly proclaim in the first few letters that they are YOUR CITY, IN YOUR COUNTY, IN YOUR STATE, OH DEAR GOD, BETTER RUN FOR IT WHILE YOU CAN. This is, obviously, not always the case, as severe thunderstorm or tornado warnings are specifically issued for smaller areas that tend to encompass only portions of counties. Therefore, while a warning may be issued for a part of my county, that is absolutely no guarantee that my city is actually affected or is anywhere near this warning. Imagine being terrified of spiders, then getting alerts every 10 minutes or so from someone reminding you that even if you can't see them, there are typically spiders within five feet of EVERY SINGLE PERSON NO MATTER WHERE YOU ARE. Especially when you sleep. And they're all brown recluses or wolf spiders (regardless of your location and their ability to survive there), and they all want to kill you. Specifically. They want to come and find YOU and crawl into every orifice. Maybe lay some eggs, who knows what they feel up to today. It's kind of like that.

So here I am, listening to the occasional and relatively faint rumble of thunder, watching the sky get lighter, KNOWING that these warnings have absolutely nothing to do with me, but dammit, I'm up waiting for the rain anyway. I can tell already that it's cloudy; the typical pretty sunrise colors that I've gotten to see off and on throughout my pregnancy-induced insomnia episodes have been absolutely glorious. Today, however, the sky is nothing but a muted, dark gray. There is some indication of texture, but it's discreet, and thanks to my failing eyesight I honestly couldn't tell you for the life of me if that texture is real or if it's me hallucinating my morning away.

Other updates are relatively innocuous - we will be staying in our current apartment until the house we wanted from the beginning of this process has appliances and flooring. Personally, I'm willing to get the hell out of Dodge as it is and live out of boxes and coolers for a while, but the owners seem to think that isn't feasible, so for now, we wait with bated breath to be told we're allowed to finally move. Our lease ends on the 16th of this month, and our original fears of being homeless between living arrangements were thankfully culled when we were informed that there was no need for us to do anything differently. Now, the problem is packing. A woman who is eight months pregnant and constantly has a two-year-old in tow has no real desire (believe me) to pack up the contents of an apartment that, originally, was intended to be a long-term dwelling. We have shit out of our ears, to be honest, and while I can't say that I'm happy about it, this is a perfect opportunity to grow the hell up and start getting rid of a few things. We've done so off and on thus far, but haven't made a serious attempt to dive into the worst of it - that, of course, being the basement and two closets. We know we have between three weeks and a month before moving day, but unfortunately, that will also be pushing it frighteningly close to the arrival of Kid #2. Here's hoping all goes well and that the little punk has no intention of making his way into the world early - I've never heard of anyone HOPING to be overdue, but this one time, my God, I want to not pop 'till the end of the month. Please grant me that one wish, won't you?

Financially we are still struggling, always struggling. Things will only get worse, for sure, when at the end of the month I finally stop working. I was loathe to set a date but realized that by putting it off I was, at best, inconveniencing the guy who had agreed to take over for me (ironically enough it's the same guy that was doing this before I took over his position). My last day will either be at some point in the last week of June or July 5th, depending on the other guy's vacation plans for that weekend, if any. If he's on vacation, I'll be working on the 5th. If not, I won't be - that simple. As it is, work has been getting more and more difficult. Standing for long periods has been hell, and the supposedly-unrelated-to-anything dizzy spells (accompanied by nausea and the distinct sensation of wanting to black out, never mind the cold sweats) have become more frequent. I am running out of clothing that actually fits, and am left with three pairs of incredibly ugly scrub pants that my mother purchased for me a couple of months ago, and a few skirts that are not considered acceptable for work. The pants, of course, are not only big around the waist but also happen to be incredibly large in the crotch - so much so that even when I pull them up to just under my boobs, the crotch of the pants is still hanging somewhere around mid-thigh. I have never felt so hideous, so exposed, so traumatized when wearing those pants. They make me feel as though I can never hope to be taken seriously.

Add in that I sweat like a half-ton man in 120 degree heat in the desert and I'm sure you can see why nonabsorbent light khaki-colored blends and I just don't get along. Because, yes, I sweat EVERYWHERE.

Pregnancy, I hate you. You're lucky the outcome is adorable.

Today is My Grumpy Day

2009-05-06T12:56:00.000-07:00

Today we're watching our friend Esther's daughter, Bailee. She's a sweetheart, and the difference in understanding and speech patterns between she and Gabe are amazing - it's obvious that while he's a year younger, a bit taller, and a good five or six pounds heavier, she is older than he is and understands things he doesn't. She follows relatively complex instructions, she has thoughts and opinions she can voice, she can voice her possessiveness, and she understands nap/quiet time - whereas with Gabe we fought kicking and screaming (he was, at least) for almost an hour to get him just to lay down. Orajel and Motrin were, I think, our only saving graces, and despite both having had lunch and a trip to the store and clean behinds, Gabe was inarguably less willing to comply. Miss Bailee, on the other hand, is still playing quietly in Gabe's room, with the light off and the shades drawn, and the door half-closed. She's sitting on his bed, behaving, having a grand old time with his toys, enjoying herself and aware that she has every right and ability to leave the room once she decides she's done playing and being quiet. I can only hope this quiet time that she's willingly taking happens to last long enough that The Kid gets a decent amount of sleep, since Esther won't be back for another two hours, and Gabe may well sleep that long without complaint. Of course, I naturally don't expect Bailee to hang out that long in a room that isn't her's, especially without company, so I'm worrying to myself about what I'm going to do to keep her fully entertained but still keep her quiet.

I was going to nap with The Kid, originally, but Husband kept falling asleep with him and snoring. So now I'm up again, headachy and unable to focus my eyes on things, grouchy and absolutely exhausted, but awake because it for some reason seems wrong to me for us both to be napping while we're watching someone else's child, and said child is up and functioning, albiet quietly in another room. I was really, seriously looking forward to this nap and quiet time - something I won't get tomorrow, since Husband works all day and I can only assume the same situation will happen. Bailee will have quiet time in Gabe's room and The Kid will sleep on our bed as usual. And I will not get to nap, because I will be the only adult here. I will also probably be clincally insane by that point.

Does anyone know how much you get for an unborn baby on the black market?

In somewhat lighter news, all of this housing fiasco crap is coming to an end - we have the house we were originally looking at and will be paying way too much for, and will hopefully start moving next month. It will suck on entirely new levels, but at least we know now that we'll have someplace to live. That's really all that matters.

Another Rainy Day

2009-04-29T21:06:00.000-07:00

So we found out today, after multiple failed attempts at finding alternate housing, that the house we were originally looking at renting-to-own was still actually open, both for purchase and rent. Husband and I had been discussing this at length (read: I was telling him he was wrong and he kept demanding something called "consideration") and eventually came to the conclusion that with summer coming up, I would likely bitch far too much for us to live in a park and be homeless. Also, I have a problem with things that buzz and sting, and chances are that in a park, I would encounter a lot of those.

So after a conversation about what we thought we were going to do to find someplace new to live (read: after deciding we were going to hope a miracle fell from the sky) we started to get back into the routine of calling the options in the classifieds and calling just about any house or apartment with a "for rent" sign in front of it. Up until today, we had gotten mostly negative responses - either the price was far out of our range, or was within our range but the apartment itself was actually a crackhouse previously inhabited by poo-flinging monkeys. Obviously this was a disappointment for us, so hearing that the house we were originally considering was still open was a good moment, even though we both knew that actually paying $500 a month (an increase of $150 that we don't have) for a rent-to-own property that we had already decided we didn't want to buy was, uh, implausable. Right, we'll say that. Still, our days are ticking by, and while we've begun the impossible task of actually THROWING THINGS AWAY (I should've asked if you were sitting down first), we haven't been doing much packing. Our constant worry has been whether or not we'll have someplace reliable and safe to live after June, and up until today it was up in the air. Today, we decided that we would give ourselves until this Friday - and if nothing better comes up, we will be calling our landlady and making the absolutely impossible transition of moving into an expensive, smaller house. Plus side: Husband is right, it feels like a weight that I didn't even know was there has been lifted from my shoulders. And it feels damn good.

Past that, my mother has her pulminary stress/functionality test tomorrow (I'm sure you can't tell that I have absolutely no idea exactly what it is she's doing) in the morning, and I still haven't called to let them know that I, uh, can't exactly come in to do my three-hour glucose test since I won't have anybody to watch The Kid for those three hours. I could be a complete slacker and walk there, do the test, wander around in between, and keep him in his stroller, but when we have no money and he hasn't had breakfast, I can't imagine him being happy about getting up and going at 8:30 in the morning when I am grouchy and CANNOT EAT. So I need to call first thing tomorrow and try to reschedule to Friday, which should be plausible as Husband shouldn't be working. Not that I really want to do the test as it is, but if it goes as well as it did last time, I shouldn't have anything to worry about. Ha, ha ha.

Also on tomorrow's list of things to do: pick up (again) so that tomorrow night we can meet the woman we're hoping will act as our doula for the birth of #2. She seems nice from emails, so we'll see if this holds true in a face-to-face meeting.

For now, that is all!

Sundays Are Long Days

2009-04-26T21:16:00.000-07:00

The remnants of a late-night snack are strewn about - water in a squeeze bottle for The Kid, Simply Grapefruit (straight from the container) for me, Mini Nilla Wafers for us both (or, as someone would say, "Cookie! Cookie!"). Now he's passed out on the floor directly to my left, in need of a second diaper within the last hour. I'm exhausted, although I'm just working off of my second wind, but have a certain distaste for sleep at the moment, knowing that at some point soon we're going to be deluged with bad weather. I'm hardly a fan of thunderstorms, and am even less so when there's the possibility of them being accompanied by anything more than rain. Husband is off at game night, hopefully having a good time, although I know I was none-too-subtle about my want for him to stay home tonight. I felt guilty about it, of course, and still do to an extent, although I'm a bit less so since tonight has been relatively easy (compared to other weekends). But today has been a somewhat difficult day physically, and I feel somewhat ill, am exhausted, and I generally don't feel all that great. The added knowledge of an impending thunderstorm (or group of thunderstorms) is overwhelming - top it off with the fact that there's a wasp stuck in our bedroom window and I think I've had about all I can take for one day.

I was supposed to work tomorrow as well, but Husband has to work a sort of odd, in-between time that would keep me from working at all during the day. My only remedy for this is to attempt to reschedule, although I'm a little worried that I'll end up simply losing the extra money and not being able to work during the day at all. Thursday's three-hour glucose retest will have to be rescheduled, hopefully for Friday; in the morning, instead, my mother will undergo further pulminary testing, in the afternoon Husband will work, and in the evening we'll get to meet with our doula for the first time.

Now, I believe it's time for a bit of clean up, to put away my juice, and to take this poor little boy to bed so I can change him. It isn't like there's anything to do online anymore, and seeing as how it's a Sunday night, there's certainly nothing interesting on TV. After that, time to move the fan into the bedroom and shut a couple of windows so I don't spend all night hearing the door in his room creak. Odd sounds affect me more than they probably ought to.

Two-Day Fail

2009-04-24T23:44:00.000-07:00

As of the last two days, I have officially failed my accepted "challenge" to blog once a day, every day, for 30 days straight. I suppose, considering all the things happening in our lives right now, it was a bit much for me to expect of myself. On the plus side, I have succeeded beyond Husband ("The ADD Muse Says ..."), who has not blogged since the 17th! Ha ha! I will consider this my small victory and run with it.

After I got over myself the other day, I suggested to Husband that we go out to dinner with the remainder of our limited funds. My mother watched The Kid while we went to a local restaurant we have only been to once before (on my birthday last year, ironically enough), and when we came home we re-watched Zack and Miri Make a Porno - not because it's a particularly family-friendly movie, but because it's absolutely adorable under all that crass humor and foul language. We picked The Kid up from my mom's house well after midnight, when we had finally finished watching the movie and half of the deleted scenes (which, for once, were deleted for a REASON; they all sucked) and realized that we were falling asleep. It reminds me of the ending of Shrek 3, where once they've finished dealing with their new little ogre babies and said kiddos are asleep, Shrek looks to Fiona and says something akin to, "So .. Now what should we do?" It's of course meant to be suggestive, meant to be a lot of things, but a split-second later the "camera" switches to an unexpected scene of the two sprawled on their bed, fully-clothed and passed out to the point of snoring. That is parenthood. THAT is accuracy. It wasn't a bad birthday at all, and I appreciated the alone time with Husband, even if all we did was watch a silly movie and try not to fall asleep.

Since then we've been continuing our struggle with housing and money. The latter appears in the form of well over $100 in back-rent owed to our current landlady, whom I have been carefully avoiding calling back for two days now because in all honesty, I've no excuse for it being late other than the fact that we are broke (trust me, what little we spent on dinner would not have made up for the money we owe her). In the business world, being broke is an excuse, not a reason, and it seems silly to put her through more trouble when we hope that my check this week will be enough to repay her the remainder of rent and leave us SOMETHING to work with for the rest of the week. I'm finding it more and more difficult to avoid putting away plain old cash, hiding it somewhere; mostly I'm avoiding it because I worry I'll lose the money, or that the container I put it in will be packed away and lost forever once I get back into the swing of packing. I'll admit, on that note, a good portion of my laziness with packing has been that it seems odd to want to pack up all of our belongings when we have nowhere to move to.

The former, to get back on track, has come to us in the form of a string of failed apartment listings. Out of the seven or so we contacted last week, two were houses (out of our price range), one was in our price range and big but had SO many problems that wouldn't be fixed that it wasn't even worth pretending we wanted it, and the rest were tiny apartments out of our price range, which is just plain silly if you think about it. Out options have gone back to being incredibly limited, and the paperwork to apply to live in a nearby 100 apartment complex is daunting to say the least. Some 12 pages of information to provide, a credit check (hah, yeah right), a waiting list, and even then, no guarantee that before June 16th (when our lease officially ends) we will be given an apartment. To say that I'm concerned about our housing situation would be a massive understatement.

The only other news I have to report is really only pertinent if you've kept up on my Twitter updates. I mentioned a while ago that my mother was having problems and was going home from work one day instead of being admitted to the hospital she works at. She has had breathing problems her entire life in the form of asthma, and smoked for quite some time off and on throughout her life. She has had severe breathing problems before, and this time ended up buying a nebulizer for home treatments. After two visits to her doctor, an MRI, an echocardiogram, blood work, and chest x-rays, along with an upcoming stress test for her heart, the general consensus is that her heart is enlarged because of her asthma, and she is likely suffering also from a condition that keeps one of the valves in a ventricle from "firing" in proper order. This combination of problems, while just as serious as any other heart issue, can be treated via medication and careful monitoring, and as long as she monitors her own health, it seems that this is something that will not immediately require surgery or other major invasive procedures. Of all of the answers that we could have been given to her problem (emphysema, lung cancer, multiple heart attacks, etc), this is perhaps the best-case scenario, because short-term treatment does not require surgery or other expensive and painful-recovery procedures to fix it. There is the unfortunate knowledge, though, that something will EVENTUALLY need to be done; of course, the verdict is still out on what, and when. She has been given detailed instructions on how to manage her medication, warning signs she should watch out for, and how often she should need to use her nebulizer during attacks and on "okay days" - more usages than what's considered within "safe" limits, and she needs to go back to the pulminologist immediately.

The only plus side I've seen so far is that next Thursday night we get to meet with my doula for the first time and find out if we're truly interested in having her along for what little is left of our journey into becoming parents a second time over. I wanted my sister-in-law here, but she has two kids of her own living with her constantly and lives 1600 miles away - if the scheduling wasn't a bit of a problem, the money would be (and is). Even this has a downside, though, as that's the day my mom is going to her pulminologist, and Husband rearranged his work schedule to make sure he'd be working during the day and not in the evening so he could meet our doula, too - and it turns out that Thursday is the day I was supposed to take my second three-hour gestational diabetes test. Oops. So I'll have to reschedule that, though I'm hoping since Husband is off the following day I can just push it to Friday. I don't like that test and I'm genuinely worried about the outcome this time (last time I passed with flying colors), so I don't want to postpone it any longer than is necessary. I want to get it over and done with so the full results will be back before my next OB appointment on May 5th or 6th.

Well, it's a bit past 2 AM now, and the heartburn and choking that had woken me up after a little less than an hour and a half of sleep are both long gone, replaced only by a somewhat dry mouth and a vague nausea that I can only assume is thanks to the two cups of chocolate milk I drank in an attempt to quell the heartburn. Nausea I can deal with, and that alone won't keep me from sleeping, especially when I have a conference call for work bright and early at 9 AM and will then be going to work afterwards. Time to head back to bed.

Feeling A Little Jipped

2009-04-22T09:04:00.001-07:00

I guess it's my own fault; I'm typically the "organizer" around here when it comes to events and schedules, so if I wanted something done I should've gotten on it weeks ago. We're busy people, and for our friends, weekdays are difficult days when it comes to getting together. Weekends always work better. Still, I guess I was hoping for something..

The Kid woke up at 7:15 AM, two hours earlier than usual, when Husband's alarm on his phone accidentially went off. Ever since, today has been mostly yelling (us) and grouching (The Kid), which has apparently - from what I can hear - been carried into the shower, via The Kid grabbing certain portions of Husband's anatomy. Other than that, we've had breakfast, and will be joining my mother at her place of employment for lunch in about an hour. I don't think any of us will be particularly hungry come lunchtime, but we'll manage one way or the other. Past that? I've gotten a couple of Facebook messages saying happy birthday. No other calls (except from my mother), nothing. There will be no cake today, no celebratory dinner tonight, no other gifts, and certainly no get-together (although I do my best to make sure that Husband and The Kid get a cake and some sort of gathering every year). Last year I wrote "happy birthday" messages to Husband all over our windows (one window even still states all of this stuff), hung streamers, blew up lots of balloons.

I suppose I've no right to gripe. I could've organized all of this myself, or asked someone else to do so. I got a "happy birthday" from my soon-to-be sister-in-law (in-law) yesterday. I had options, but instead of taking advantage of them, I'm finding reasons to complain. I'm not in high school anymore; nobody's going to decorate my locker and make sure that in choir, theatre, and band I'm sung to. I'm not going to get birthday cards passed to me all day. I'm hardly around anybody else for them to remember otherwise.

Ah, well. Enough griping from me, there's showering and more cleaning to be done, clothes to lay out for The Kid .. Plenty to do to occupy myself. Later, after cleaning and picking up, there will be fun in the form of getting juice and milk and bread at the store. Oh, yeah. I'm a real party animal.

I Promise I Still Win

2009-04-21T21:51:00.000-07:00

My clock says 11:51 PM on April 21st, so technically I haven't lost the fight - no matter what time Blogger thinks it is (or isn't). I have yet to figure out how to fix the time stamp problem; I've tried on multiple occasions but to no avail.

Tomorrow is my birthday. I'll be 23. Today has not been a particularly good day, and I am sincerely hoping that tomorrow is loads better. I will be spending most of it cleaning the house - not an ideal sitaution, but I'll take any improvement at the moment.

Please keep this beautiful baby girl (linked, hover over for clickability) in your thoughts - she is "another" Kayleigh Anne (we have the same first and last name), and has pulled through so much recently to suddenly take a very terrible, heartbreaking dive. I hope for her family's sake that things do change, soon, for the better. They have such faith and conviction and have endured through multiple struggles, and they (and their adorable daughter) deserve so much better than this.

A Little Sweet Tea Goes A Long Way

2009-04-20T20:51:00.000-07:00

And tastes damn good, too.

Husband gave me my birthday present today (my birthday is on Wednesday). I found a game a while back on Yahoo! Games, and found myself instantly amused by it. It is aptly named "The Princess Bride Game" and at the time I was only able to download a trial version, but found it adorable and amusing. The movie itself holds significance for us, as the first time Husband came down to visit me, we watched it at his behest - and shared our first kiss. It wasn't the world's most romantic thing, but we still have a certain amount of appreciation for this fact, some nine years later. I intend on installing, although I likely won't play tonight, since it's already 11 PM and it turns out I'm rather tired. The Kid is snoozing peacefully in bed, and the idea of curling up next to that warm, angelic teddy bear of a two-year-old is calming and appealing. I want to go sleep, too, and be a part of that happiness.

Thus, today's post is short - but at least I've gone three days in a row now and have managed to post something, however inane!

I Had A Bad Day Again

2009-04-19T21:25:00.000-07:00

When The Kid was born, he was 8 lbs 4 oz. A good-sized kid, originally due April 16th. When we left the hospital we were told that his biliruben levels were elevated, and to come back the next day for blood tests. Come back we did - and within 24 hours of originally coming home, we were back in the hopsital (he lost well over a pound within his first few days).

Jaundice, among all of the potential side-effects of delivering early, really isn't the most life-threatening. I was supposedly jaundiced when I was born. Lots of people were - and everybody I know has been okay. But for first-time parents, it was excruciating to be told to leave our beautiful baby boy in a box, to let him cry because it was better to have him in that box crying than it was to take him out and risk damaging any of his organs.

Husband took to singing "Yellow" by Coldplay to The Kid when he was crying and there was nothing either of us could do. It was an appropriate song, although I don't think either of us really thought his skin had that signature yellow tint to it that jaundiced babies tend to get. In retrospect it should be relatively amusing - Husband had the common sense to sing a song that was appropriate for the situation - but the lyrics themselves seemed to hone in on a deeper emotion that we were getting to experience for the first time.

Look at the stars,
Look how they shine for you,
And everything you do,
Yeah, they were all yellow.
I came along,
I wrote a song for you,
And all the things you do,
And it was called yellow.
So then I took my turn,
Oh what a thing to have done,
And it was all yellow.
Your skin
Oh yeah, your skin and bones,
Turn into something beautiful,
You know, you know I love you so.
I swam across,
I jumped across for you,
Oh what a thing to do.
'Cuz you were all yellow,
I drew a line,
I drew a line for you,
Oh what a thing to do,
And it was all yellow.
Your skin,
Oh yeah your skin and bones,
Turn into something beautiful,
And you know for you,
I'd bleed myself dry.
For you I'd bleed myself dry.
It's true, look how they shine for you,
Look how they shine for you,
Look how they shine for,
Look how they shine for you,
Look how they shine for you,
Look how they shine.
Look at the stars,
Look how they shine for you,
And all the things that you do.

When I say that I've had a bad day, I mean that today really wasn't all that awful up until, for some reason, the point when Husband went to work after I came home. I spent nearly all of those four hours he was gone sobbing uncontrollably, and after he left to go to Sunday night game, it began again. I have only just stopped crying within the last 45 minutes or go, an accomplishment I'd be more willing to flaunt if I understood better why I put myself through so many hours of mental anguish just for the sake of bawling my eyes out. It's even upsetting #2, Little Kid, who is defiantly kicking the shit out of me in retribution for all the loud, crying-type noises I've been torturing him with.

I guess every once in a while we just need to get it all out, to find some kind of release for the pent-up anger and frustration and sadness that we box away day after day. I never was good at dealing with individual emotions, and so I think I find it easier to let them stew until I can't stand it anymore. A good cry unfortunately doesn't always do the trick, but more often than not it will help enough that I can sufficiently continue on with life without feeling like some kind of crazed sociopath. Tonight, however, the reasons for my crying leave me wanting to do little more than cuddle up with my two-year-old and be thankful that while I admit to having problems that are more than I alone can deal with, I am not fucked up enough that I would willingly and thoughtlessly starve and beat my baby boy, then leave him to die. There is a picture fresh in my mind of a gorgeous, blonde-haired little boy who met such a fate, a picture of him smiling and happy and looking as though his world is wonderful and perfect, and it tears my heart to absolute shreds to know that he is no longer alive and died at the same age as my beautiful baby boy.

I may have problems, but at least I am not a monster even on my worst days.

Meanwhile, the house is a no - rent would be jacked up to $500 total, which far exceeds our payment abilities. Back to the drawing board. It is, however, good to have a solid answer, to not wonder any longer. In this sort of situation, it is dangerous for us to have too much hope about one single option, hope that keeps us from persuing other choices because we are too hung up on the potentials - and now that this option is no more, we will move on and continue looking for other places to live.

The new layout has a link to it on the right-hand bar, and for anyone looking for free (or cheap) layouts that vary seasonally, I highly suggest checking them out.

Until tomorrow - for now, I'm going to go pee one last time (until I have to get up again to do so in two hours) and head to bed so I can curl up with The Kid and wonder about things.

Moving Up In The World

2009-04-18T22:06:00.000-07:00

I was at Wal-Mart earlier, perusing their sandal collection and looking for something relatively cheap that I can (yet again) wear while in labor at the hospital, and ended up finding a dress to wear to our friend Bec's wedding next month, and a new shirt. It turns out that Wally World has discontinued their maternity clothing (at least locally), not that the damn stuff ever fit me anyway, yet a good portion of their everyday plus sized clothing actually functions better as maternity wear. I intend on also making some of this into nursing wear, should nursing work out this time around, although I will be honest in admitting that the concept of a nursing bra for someone my size is laughable at best. I've done a bit of research and have thus far learned the following:

People can charge a lot for plus-sized clothing.

People DO charge a lot for plus-sized clothing.

I will be spending $50 easily on one good nursing bra. ONE.

To me, this seems ungodly. The idea of spending more on one bra that I MIGHT get to use for a year and that may not fit me once #3 rolls around than I would spend on three pairs of jeans is ludacris. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem I'll be given much of a choice. Forcing a regular bra to work as a nursing bra is difficult at best given my size, and completely tearing one apart to attempt to make it into a nursing bra is a feat that is not for the lighthearted (a group that I am certainly a member of, if not maybe VP). The thought of trying to breastfeed, especially in public, and still manage some level of modesty, seems far-fetched given the circumstances I'm facing. I can't bring myself to justify spending that much money on one bra that I'll have to special-order, a bra that may not fit me in the first place and a bra that I may have to spend money on to ship - meaning if I spend a total of $60 on one bra, plus shipping, one way, I will still be out $20 once I've shipped the damn thing back after I found it didn't fit. Then I have to wait for the refund. And then I'd have to start the process again. If one bra doesn't fit, I will lose a THIRD of my investment into it (or thereabouts) attempting to get it, then give it back.

In lighter news, our living arrangements have not yet changed. A full day's worth of rain (with another day of heavy rain being promised to us by the local meteorologists) means we're still struggling with leaks on the wall by Husband's desk, and on the other side of the wall directly behind a bookcase I'm struggling to empty out. I keep meaning to work on packing, but at this point it's a bigger deal to keep the house halfway clean. My new doula, a wonderful woman I found via DONA, will be visiting in the next two weeks or so to come talk to us. I'm excited, but I'm worried at the same time - we are notorious pack rats, and have a LOT of stuff sitting around. Mostly toys. Making all of this stuff look like it's halfway organized always turns out to be a struggle of several days, and even then it's back to normal within a week. Partially because we're lazy. And partially because ... Well, keeping up a home with a two-year-old in tow is difficult. Just ask us.

We have a place in mind we're considering, and need to continue our search for other arrangements, but so far I think we've both come to terms with the entire situation. It sucks on levels I cannot begin to explain, but at this rate we aren't being given much of a choice. We can either deal with it now, or wait until the last minute and end up homeless. I'm not a fan of the second option, so #1 is all we've got for now. I keep reminding myself that one way or the other, everything will work out as it's supposed to, and as long as we're all doing okay and have a roof over our heads and food to eat, and of course jobs to go to, we're doing a hell of a lot better than we've been able to claim in the past. We will manage, we will survive, and if it means a struggle, it's nothing we haven't done before.

As a sidenote, Husband has issued a challenge to other bloggers, and to himself: a 30-day Blog-a-Thon. He intends to blog every day for 30 days straight. I accepted his challenge on what he considered to be Day 1 for him - April 13th - and promptly did not follow through. In fact, I failed by five days, if you ignore the fact that I began this post before midnight. Husband has done quite well, only missing a couple of times. I think, though, that this says a lot about us.

We're young, we have things to work on. We'll manage. Always do.

Here's wishing everyone a warm weekend and a drier Sunday than we're going to have.

It's Been A Hard Day's Night

2009-04-08T13:24:00.001-07:00

Even the uplifting strains of "Come Sail Away" in the background can't make up for all of this.

We still haven't heard back from our landlady about the status of the house we were going to rent-to-own. At this point, I realize fully that I should call her myself and find out exactly what's going on. The problem is, of course, that I'm absolutely done with this entire situation. It seems unlikely at this point that we're going to get the house, and while I'm tempted to pursue it with some sort of unrealistic optimism, it doesn't seem worth all the hassle anymore. I'm painfully aware of how dire of a situation this is, but at the same time I can't begin to explain how draining it is to go through all of this at once. I had never thought that in this economy we would have to struggle so violently to WANT to pay someone money every month for living someplace! The worst part is that thanks to our combined credit histories, we have no chance of buying in the immediate future - leaving us open to the housing crisis. I worry daily about whether or not we'll be one of the world's homeless in a month or two.

We have options, of course, limited as they are. I'm single-handedly attempting to explore them all, but my expectations are depressingly low. I suppose I'm tiring of all of this drama; I'm not a fan of soap operas for a reason, and the idea of dealing with finding housing for all of us and trying, at the same time, to figure out how we will make ends meet and when we'll pay bills is becoming a strain. I usually open and deal with all of the bills we get - electric and phone go straight to me, and I deal with them alone nine times out of ten. Rent is open season but I feel I'm usually the one that remembers it needs to be paid and arranges for us to take those few extra minutes in order to do so. The car bills always go straight to Husband's desk, because they're in his name, but most of the time I'm again the one that brings up when they're due. GMAC no longer calls him first, they call my phone instead; the problem is that they can't actually share or discuss account information with me because the car is entirely in his name, so all they're ever calling to do is talk to him, or have him call them back. I pass on the message, but he rarely calls them unless I harp on him for days prior just to get him to let them know that yes, we remember they exist and we haven't forgotten that we owe them money, too.

Thankfully, though we've been denied our food stamp benefits for now (a long story in and of itself), I have an appointment to reapply for WIC next Thursday. Because we're on the medical card for the state and I'm currently pregnant, we SHOULD qualify without question, but we're still required to bring proof of our income - I'm sure you can see why this makes me nervous, considering that we should qualify no matter how much we make as long as I'm pregnant and we're on the state medical program, but they still require income verification. This is our only hope at affording some semblance of groceries on our own, and I can only hope we're approved. It's really, really embarassing to use, but at the same time I'm so thankful for the assistance WIC provides.

Keep your thoughts with us while we figure out how to deal with all of this. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow morning, and will be speaking with my OB about seeing a therapist and potentially starting the medication I should've been on years ago.

Good Monday Morning

2009-04-06T07:27:00.000-07:00

Only, perhaps not so much.

We were informed last week that our landlady would (hopefully) let us know today whether or not the actual owner of the house would let us rent-to-own without an increase in rent. Unfortunately, the way she worded the situation last I spoke to her indicated that she had no control over whether or not the rent would increase, and there was a good possibility that it would. She said she would hopefully find out by today, but I kind of felt that even if she doesn't find out today, she still needs a yes or no on the house. This leaves us with a couple of situations; three, to be exact, since the fourth isn't an option. To give you an idea of where we stand, here are the options:

* We go ahead and rent the house while it's still on the market, leaving us open to having the house sold from underneath us while we're still living there at any point in time (this is the one that isn't an option for us).

* We tell her we'll take the house anyway, without an answer about the rent increase, and then attempt to deal with the increase if and when it happens (also not an option, because IF the rent goes up, we can't afford it).

* We find out the rent is going to increase for sure, which is also a no, but it's a potential option.

* We find out the rent WON'T go up, and thus can give her a yes on the house and stop worrying about all of this.

Obviously, out of all of those situations, the last one is the best for us. Anything else is a no, and means that we're back to the drawing board on our living situation, with even less time to try to find some kind of solution. There are numerous plus sides to the house; not only is it a guarantee of not having to deal with any stairs, but it means too that we'll have a full building to ourselves and a yard that's just our's. It isn't a perfect situation, but it's as much as we can hope for right now, considering our options.

Of course, we're also dealing with other typical life problems, namely money. That stuff is evil, although I'll avoid the cliché that it's somehow necessary in our lives. Tack on to our issues that we've suddenly been denied renewal of the LINK card this month, leaving us unable to even buy our own groceries, and it seems like everything is piling up on itself. Husband has stated multiple times that we will be okay and things will work out, and I do agree with that, but sometimes it's so difficult to actually see things in that positive light. Thus far, someone has been watching out for us - we've been lucky and fortunate enough to have that big miracle happen right when we needed it. But right now, we're in desperate need of that miracle - instead of it being us, all of our friends are finding their windfalls and we're yet again behind and struggling for the things that we NEED, and going without the few things that we want. This is rather typical for us, but it still seems grossly unfair; we've done our best to bust our asses for what we want, and for some reason we're still the ones that are being denied our few basic requests - like food, safe housing, and a little financial help here and there. I keep waiting for the state medical card to be withdrawn; we don't make enough for that to happen, and I know it, but I can't help worrying.

Today I'll likely be going out to request a housing form from Country Club Heights, a local income-based rental complex. They're almost always booked, though, and there's a waiting list that has no concern for immediate need.

Weasel Stomping Day

2009-03-24T02:00:00.001-07:00

The next four months promise to be incredibly interesting.

Last Friday we receieved notice from our landlady, via a phone call, that the bank that owns this property will not be renewing any leases here, or at the building immediately next door. They've decided that, considering the increase in tenants in their own bank building across the street, it would be far more economical to tear down both of these houses and instead provide extra parking - thus ensuring that the bank can offer more rental space in their own building, and that the tenants they already have will not be as jammed into their parking spaces. As it is, two new cars have been introduced; one parks atop a rather large sinkhole that formed at some point in the parking lot's life, and which could easily destroy a portion of a car should the poor woman back her low-set SUV-type-thing out improperly, and the other parks beside us in what is, technically, parking reserved for apartment tenants of our building and the one next door. Speaking from a strictly financial standpoint, I can see why this makes sense: rent payments from the tenants of a couple of old houses that are in constant need of upkeep and repair will never meet or exceed the amount that the bank will take in via renting out the remainder of their internal office space. Even filling one tiny office will provide more than our paltry (in comparison) $350 a month, an amount that I can't imagine would be exceeded by any degree by including an upstairs tenant in this building (we don't believe there is one) and a tenant in the house next door.

This, of course, poses a problem. Not one full year ago, as of this July, we moved into this apartment. Of the places we have lived, it has seemed the most homey, although it has recently started to show its age via a persistent leak near Husband's computer desk whenever it rains, a troubled cold water knob in the shower coupled with leakage problems around the tub that have left the bathroom floor soaked in a two-foot diameter spreading away from the tub, and a mouse that has spread itself from occasionally scaring the living shit out of us on the floor to making irritating night noises by eating through the drop ceiling tiles while we sleep. All of these things would, hypothetically, be fixable, although their price ranges for doing so would vary considerably: I imagine that "fixing" the mouse would cost no more than a few dollars, but the drainage and leaking problems could well add up into the hundreds, depending on the severity. Since I'm no home improvement specialist, my assumption is that these things are expensive, and thus will not be fixed within the three months we have left in which we're allowed to live here - so, while it goes mostly against our better judgement of actually informing our landlady that we have problems here, we're avoiding it anyway in lieu of being told that none of these things are worth the bank spending its money on.

Anyway, I've gotten off topic. The problem is that our beloved little apartment, someplace we had originally intended on staying for at least a little while, will be gone within the next four or five months, and our lease expires before then. This opened us up to the question of whether or not we had the option of buying a house for ourselves; this was quickly answered after a visit to a loan specialist, who bluntly but helpfully informed us that our credit scores hovered in the low 520 range, but that there were some things we could do in order to help ourselves. It was a short, bittersweet conversation - we had gone into the process hoping for a miracle but knowing that we would be denied - but it answered the question that would determine the process we would use to continue our search for other living arrangements. So we steered away from the faraway concept of ownership and instead looked over the pathetic excuse for an apartment listing that was provided to us via the bank (along with the promise from our landlady that, as we were "dear to [her] heart" we would be given first choice of all open rentals with the bank). Most of the places were far smaller than what we started out with two years ago at our Broadway apartment, and the majority were within areas that we considered beyond unsafe to live in. We struggled with the idea of renting one of their also-for-sale four bedroom homes with a married couple we know, though that idea was quickly shot down as they own two cats and some four or five ferrets; we already illegally have our cats here with us and would hate to see the fees that would be incurred by asking for that many more pets, if they were allowed at all. Our only other feasible option was a tiny, two bedroom house with yard and basement. It was determined, after some measuring and considering, that our bed would only barely fit into the biggest bedroom, and even then it would be a struggle to get it into the room, much less positioned. The living room would barely contain all that our current living room does: a couch, an old console TV (we can't afford an HDTV), and two computer desks complete with computers. The blue rocking chair currently in our living room would have to be moved elsewhere. The basement is dirty and somewhat inaccessible for someone as unsteady as me, the storage space is questionable at best, and we would completely lose our game/dining room. One of the doors would need to be replaced, and a portion of the foundation on either side of the basement is caving in (this is bad enough on one side that they have put in wooden supports in an attempt to take some of the weight off of the original crumbling rock). Husband's biggest problem: the stove would be electric, not gas.

The exchanges were questionable. There is no dedicated parking, leaving others to park in front of the house or out behind it in the yard. There is, however, a yard - that in and of itself is a huge improvement over our ten foot by eight foot gravel pit. There's a fairly secure deck that leads off of the house, it's in a relatively decent neighborhood, there's a baseball field just across the rarely-used street, and all of the windows are new. There are laundry hookups that are easily accessible from every corner of the house, meaning that we can finally begin doing our own laundry again at home (this is a brilliant concept to me, as I have wanted for some time to get into some form of cloth diapering for Kid #2) and thus stop using so much gas just for me to go over to Mom's house to do laundry there. The biggest caveat was that, if we rented the house, we would have the entire building to ourselves. It's a novel concept for a couple of people that have been renting this entire time; we're used to sharing a building with at least one other tenant, and thus having to be careful that we're not too loud at night, that nothing gets slammed, or that we aren't coming in at all hours and disrupting the others that live there. It has meant, too, that we've been subjected to the loud late-night music of college students and the bad parking jobs of their peers. We've had to wonder who else in the building is getting our mail, and why we're still getting mail for people that, to the best of our knowledge, don't even live in the building anymore. We would be privvy, too, to the wonders of a dishwasher, to brand-new carpeting and linoleum, and to walls that are no longer a disturbing tanned flesh tone.

The point of contention was that the price increase would be some $100 a month. Not bad, when all things are considered, for a house in exchange for an apartment, but Husband wisely indicated that we would be better off by looking around and considering our other options, even if it meant giving up the dependable services of our landlady's maintenance crew and her overwhelming desire to make sure that their buildings are safe and well taken care of. My mother swore she'd be willing to personally take care of this price increase in our stead, much the same way she originally promised to pay half of our car payment every month. We went to look, we argued, we considered, we found every possible problem with the house that we could, including the substancial decrease in space. We were kindly provided with the key for the weekend, and took a trip back to stay for two hours in which we did our best to talk ourselves out of the house. We wouldn't want to buy it, we argued, as the number of expensive-to-fix problems far outweighed any potential benefit the home would provide. It wasn't a long-term option, thanks to the crumbling foundation, which would mean that we'd still have to find a new place to live in the next year or two, whether or not we liked the house or wanted to stay. There are only two phone jacks in the entire house, neither of which is actually functional and only one of which is in the proper place to allow us internet access without wireless cards in our computers - another potential problem for a couple of junkies. We'd never be able to comfortably fit our belongings into the place, and if we moved in, the entire house would look incredibly crowded - especially with the addition of another child.

Only, well, maybe we could use this portion of the basement for storage moreso than the rest. We could always clean up the yard; that would leave us with a bit of a better feeling about the whole place. If we put the TV here, and the desks here, and maybe if I switched out from a rather large table to a smaller, more reasonably sized computer desk, we had a chance of fitting things in. If we're willing to live with the few inconveniences that the size provides, we'd have a chance of living comfortably. And the table that currently takes up most of the space in the game/dining room could fit, leaves down, in the middle of the kitchen, given a chance.

I'm sure you can see where this is going.

So yesterday I called our landlady and let her know that yes, we would take the house, if she would agree to a walk-through with her at some point this week. She gladly agreed. Now we again begin the long process of cleaning up, decluttering, and packing for yet another move. Wish us luck.

There You Have It

2009-03-13T08:26:00.000-07:00

I suppose if you haven't noticed the silly, somewhat juvenile tickers I've added to the sidebar over there (it was on a whim, I promise I'll get over it soon), you'd be unaware that we've found our second little bug is going to be a boy. I'll admit some disappointment; we had been so sure that this one was a girl that we had thought of a girl's name and had been referring to the baby as a "she." This was the least of our stupidity, but we reasoned that even though everyone had thought that The Kid was a girl, we knew it was a boy (and turned out to be right) - so of course we were right this time, too! ... Only we were anything but. Still, there are advantages to this; we know how to raise a boy, we have boy clothes leftover, and we're slowly managing to come up with boy names.

Otherwise we're still doing quite well. I had some mild health problems recently that have involved coming very close to fainting. I've been told that my blood pressure is all right, though, and that it's nothing more than a sudden drop in pressure brought on by extreme temperature changes. I have a feeling there's more to it, but my doctor says otherwise - so until something strange happens I'm willing to call it good for now. Health-wise, things have been great. I still have suffered less this time around than I did with The Kid, and am thankful for it. I feel relatively good, all things considered, although I still have a huge aversion to cleaning that I've had, um, ... All my life. Never mind, I guess I can't blame that on pregnancy.

Speaking of cleaning, I suppose I really ought to get on that, hmm?

If We Want to Make Generalizations, We'll Need to Be More Specific.

2009-03-02T03:37:00.000-08:00

It's closer to 6 AM than it was when I originally intended to say something - anything - but I suppose I'll go ahead and explain why the hell I'm up so early anyway!

I've been up since 4:45 AM. I made the casual, understandible mistake that all pregnant women do, and got up to go pee only a couple of hours before a rather important and nerve-wracking event. Today is our "big" ultrasound, and it's scheduled for 9 AM on the dot (from what I can remember). I know I should try desperately to remind myself that kid #2 may not even be in a position to flash the goods, and that we may not even get to find out today, but it's hard to think about that when all I want to do is find out whether or not my assumptions for the last five-ish months have been correct. I want to make sure that there's nothing wrong, that the powers-that-be have been kind in their assigment of working-order pieces to this creature (which I've seen is approximately the size of a large heirloom tomato, now - leaving me thinking that I probably have an actual tomato in there, as opposed to a baby). I want continual affirmation that as a larger woman (who am I kidding, I'm huge!), I have the ability to produce healthy children who aren't automatically littered with weight or health problems. This will only be my second ultrasound (the first was necessary because the LMP date and the measuring date, due to this kid being a product of a second ovulation for NO REASON that I couldn't remember exactly when it was, were off by several weeks), so I feel some odd sense of entitlement to check on this kid once more before I go back to life as I know it.

The funny thing is that thus far, I've often had to remind myself I'm pregnant. I've had the off pain here and there, nothing dangerous, but otherwise I have been relatively lucky in that my symptoms have been few and far between. I haven't suffered with this kid like I did with #1, and I try to remind myself that I am of a numbered few who goes those first three or four months without throwing up once due to pregnancy. I haven't gained weight at all that I'm aware of; I started out at about 330 pounds with clothes on and have remained there, hovering between 329.4 and 329.9 consistently in the doctor's office. I'm proud of that accomplishment, as I've done little to change my diet beyond not allowing myself to fall into the age-old trap of eating for two. I still wear the same size pants, and am only finally starting to worry about my shirts. Pants that were too big for me pre-pregnancy are still too big, and I couldn't be more lucky. I guess there are some plus sides to being plus-sized.

That being said, I'm now at a mental fork in the road. I can stay up and likely do unconstructive things, then realize at 7:15 AM (when I only have about 15 minutes to go back to sleep) that I am exhausted, or I can go back to bed now while I'm still not sleepy and put my very cold feet on Husband's nice, warm legs. The problem then, of course, would be that if I don't pass back out, I'm kind of SOL - past a certain point in the morning, if you so much as think about moving, The Kid will automatically realize that there is some vague possibility that YOU ARE AWAKE, and he probably should be too. This has held true as early as 5 AM, so at 5:50 AM I am already taking my chances as it is. Ah, decisions, decisions.

Life's A Bitch

2009-02-24T07:13:00.000-08:00

I realize that's a bit of a frank statement for some people, but the honest part is that it's TRUE: life has a tendency to be a bitch more often than not.

There's shopping to be done today, and so much cleaning and picking up to do that I'd be lying if I said I was happy to be awake. A couple of days ago I had a random, unpleasant experience involving vomiting at 1:30 in the morning, and for some reason I'm still relatively drained. I blame it on the fact that I haven't eaten breakfast yet - in fact, the only one of us that has eaten anything is the kid, and his breakfast consisted of a couple of bites of oatmeal and some milk. This child eats like a bird, and I'm surprised half the time that he hasn't just poofed out of existence after imploding on himself. There's nothing to him, if you just look at him, but he's actually a little above the 50th percentile for weight, which makes no sense because this child has BONES that you can SEE and FEEL. Mind you, most of this discomfort and complaining comes from an overweight woman that can't remember when she last wore something that wasn't considered "XL" or "plus-sized". Maybe it's a personal problem.

I think I'm going to do what I can to get the rest of the fam-dam going - Husband is playing Grand Theft Auto III with the kid in his lap, and none of us are even remotely prepared to "face the day". But at this rate, we have no hope of accomplishing anything if we don't get our exhausted asses in gear.

I'll likely hop back on later to say something snotty about Octo-mom.

Today Sums Up Nine Years Pretty Well

2009-02-09T14:54:00.000-08:00

We had spent the last couple of days planning what today would be like. It's our ninth anniversery, after all - nine long years ago today, we started "going out". I was originally going to post something long, thoughtful, and insightful, but for now I'm going to suspend that post for something a bit more cynical and realistic. Today calls for it.

This morning we woke up blissfully knowing that it would be the last night we would spend on the dreadful air mattress that has been, in one form or another, our only sleeping arrangement since June of last year. Two fat people and a very squirmy, space-hog of a toddler do not belong on one single queen sized air mattress, and this new mattress was the whole reason The Kid has a skull fracture in the first place. We were told it would be in last Thursday or Friday; when Saturday came with no news, Husband called the store and asked when we could expect it. We were told today, somewhere between 4 and 5 PM without a doubt. I became understandibly cynical when 4:30 rolled around with no new information, and my concern was justified when I called the store at about 5 to inquire as to the status of our $800 some odd investment. I was told that the delivery van was just heading back from a city about 45 minutes away and it would be upwards of another hour before our mattress was brought to us - but, of course, not to worry because it would be here tonight. I felt bad for calling and asking, but at least I got some semblance of reassurance that everything will be in order, given time.

That isn't the worst part of today, though. We were going to go to a sushi place in town - not that I can eat the stuff, but Husband won't eat sushi either and instead boasts about their teriyaki chicken - and then come home and watch a movie ("Zack & Miri Make A Porno") and then, with The Kid at my mother's house, hopefully get to christen our new bed. I know, perhaps a lot of information for those with sensitive imaginations, but it's the damn truth and I'm not ashamed - for once! - to say it.

Only, it rained today, meaning my mother is none too keen on watching said Kid because of the numerous leakage problems her house has. On top of that, this morning Husband partook (partaked?) in our orange juice and for some reason has since been suffering the ill side effects of what seems to be food poisoning. The juice is gone, as is the rinsed-out Snapple tea bottle he was using, but he has thrown up at least once and has had numerous other stomach problems all day that have basically ruled out any hope of our enjoying our anniversery evening beyond at least being able to sit at home.

I think that this sums up nine years of a relationship rather well: you can't predict 99% of it and can plan all you want, but somehow fate will find a way to mess things up sufficiently enough to make you question your sanity.

Like making you watch "Pat the Bunny" for hours on end.

I Wish I Could Drink Today

2009-02-06T08:55:00.001-08:00

So here I am, with a box of Puffs with Vicks and The Kid asleep behind me on the loveseat. I've had some chocolate milk, my "allergies" are continuing their transformation into "sinus infection from Hell", and I still have a lot of cleaning and picking up to do before we (hopefully) get that wonderful call letting us know that we are privledged enough to be getting a bed delivered today. A real, functional, useful, comfy bed that isn't inflated.

Sorry, The Kid just woke up.

Anyway, I have cleaning and picking up and rearranging to do that I have no interest in doing. If I lean over too long, my head hurts and I feel generally more icky, but that doesn't help me pick up the laundry that has mysteriously found its way to the floor in the bedroom. It's a slow process, especially since picking it up also means rearranging all of the clothes that are already stuffed into our "closet", because the damn thing is out in the open and while we are typically messy people, I really don't like the idea of strangers traipzing into our house to decide that we live in a pigsty. Sadly, The Kid - who is still rather ill - won't be making this day any easier, and Husband is out doing work-type things today, likely getting to enjoy the beautiful weather to at least some degree. I wanted to take The Kid out for a walk, since it's already almost 60 outside, but at this point I don't seriously see us getting out until Husband gets home close to 5 PM, when the sun is already setting. This is a pipe dream at best, and because of it I'm seriously considering opening some of the windows that don't have plastic over them yet.

Of course, window opening won't happen unless this whining, incredibly ill, completely discontent child manages to feel better long enough to let me finish cleaning so I can take a shower so we can even go for a walk in the first place. Dear God, at this point I just want him to stop whining so I don't feel like I suck so much!

An Admission of Guilt

2009-02-05T10:12:00.000-08:00

I will admit that there is a significant amount of guilt associated with going over a month without posting anything, even a meager update, to a blog that I know at least a couple of poor souls read (even though I'm sure they have better things to do with their time). I have excuses, pathetic as they are, and most of them revolve around the alien creature that has contently taken over my body and any semblance of coherent thought. I had blissfully forgotten about the maddening mood swings, the crazed hormonal imbalance that is pregnancy, and thus had forgotten how to deal with the depression that comes along with all of this. I argued with myself for some time about the appropriate response to my hormones; do I blog anyway and risk alienating a number of readers who think I've gone over the edge and emo, or do I take a short break and recollect my thoughts? I took the latter route, although I will say that a lot has been missed thanks to this "break."

Namely, last Tuesday (January 27th), The Kid was in an accident.

I shouldn't say that he was IN an accident, so much as there was one; no cars were involved, but we were shopping at a local furniture store and he fell off of a flight of stairs thanks to unsecured rails. It was one of those fluke of nature things, where, naturally, in the two seconds he had let go of my hand, he slipped between the posts and fell some seven or so feet straight down onto his back. The floor beneath was concrete, and needless to say there was some injury suffered. We had a horrible time with our local hospital, which included arriving by ambulance with our little boy strapped to a full body board, then having to wait half an hour before anybody even came in to look at him. Nine hours later we were driving 45 mph down the highway to St. Louis Children's Hospital, aware only that our son had a slight sub-something hematoma (a bleed beneath the skull) and a c-shaped fracture along the sutures in his skull. A drive that should have taken 2 1/2 hours became closer to 3 1/2 thanks to horrible weather conditions south of us. Thankfully, things have turned out all right; we stayed one day for observation and were released to come back home the following day. Other than a nasty headache, The Kid has been doing reasonably well, with no significant changes in personality or mood.

Of course, that wasn't enough: within a few days, he developed an upper respiratory infection that has ended in Azithromyacin, finally prescribed by his pediatrition after two days of no sleep and little food intake, a lot of throwing up, and a horrible temperature (103.4) that resulted in a useless visit to the emergency room (we were told, "It's just a viral thing, give him Benadryl"). He's still sick, but doing better when all things are considered. The downside is that now I'm getting sick, too, and am certainly feeling the effects of what I am positive is a sinus infection. It's a couple of months late for the season, but I hope it won't be all that bad.

So I'm still struggling with a lot of internal guilt, as is Husband, though we both know that nothing the past week has given us is at all our fault. Someone thought all of this needed to happen, and it has, and everything has more or less turned out okay. The Kid's skull is still fractured, but will heal on its own given time. Illnesses come and go, and come the end of July I will hopefully be able to rid myself of at least a little of this hormonal insanity - only to likely deal with more for different reasons.

No news on when we get to go for our "big" ultrasound to find out the gender of Kid Two; my assumption is that it will be sometime at the end of the month or beginning of March. We're hoping for a girl, because it'd be a lovely change of pace, and I can't think of any good boy names.

Otherwise, we're doing all right. Which, I guess, is all we could ask for right now.

All right, so!

2008-12-29T09:56:00.000-08:00

This is probably going to be a short post, which I apologize for. However, things around here have been interesting ...

First, Internet, we can officially say it out loud: Kid #2 will be here in July 2009. The families know, so it's okay to tell everybody else. So there you go, Internet - we're having another baby. Merry Christmas and happy new year.

Secondly, the dear husband has been in an awful mood for two days now and while I typically consider myself a rather tolerant individual, I am very close to tearing my hair out. He is existing in a little pit of self-defeat and frustration, one that he refuses to try to get out of, so for now I'm doing my best to pretend that this is obviously an "okay" way to act and be. Meanwhile my helpful suggestions for ending this moodswing have gotten me nowhere, although I think at one point he may have grunted at me in reponse to something I said. I suppose I should consider that "progress" and put on a smile.

Wow!

2008-12-19T01:11:00.001-08:00

Okay, so a few things to get to now, I suppose - if one can ignore the fact that it is past 3 AM and I have absolutely no intention of going back to bed anytime soon. Even though it's freezing over here, brr.

First, I WON THINGS. This NEVER happens to me, and I have been a firm believer for many years that I am not only incredibly unlucky but probably also cursed in more ways than one. Yet, somehow, I have managed to win two beautiful handcrafted items. The first is an amazing holiday goblet (see it in this post) from Lorrie over at Our Name Is Blog (which, by the way, you should be reading if you are not already). The giveaway was random and the suggested blog topic that I gave was to blog about the worst gift you have ever given someone, or have been given by someone else. Trust me, you need to go look at the entrants; they were all amazing and hilarious. I unfortunately didn't get to participate, but it seems I've won enough and will still try to put something up on that topic, hopefully tomorrow. If you read my blog and not Lorrie's, please, throw up some kind of post or something on this topic anyway if you get the chance.

The second thing I won was a gorgeous picture from Life Spatula, which is yet again another blog you ought to be reading if you aren't already. There's a picture of the painting here and I can't begin to tell you how totally stoked I am about these things. It feels like we have nothing nice in our apartment and both of these things will be welcome additions to an otherwise bland place with skin-tinted walls and posters from PlayStation and computer game hint books. Spatula has given a challenge that I try to draw the scene I portrayed; at the very least I intend on trying to find the picture in question. I know it's at Mom's house somewhere.

You should be able to find both Our Name Is Blog and Life Spatula in my sidebar.

The second thing I would like to note is that WE HAVE A MOUSE. I realize this is an older house and it's winter, but seriously? A mouse? When Colin finally came to bed at, oh, 2:00 AM (he has to be up at 7 AM so this is bad enough) we talked for a little while because he was grumpy about Gmail being rather stupid, and then, right before I'm about to get back to sleep and I'm warm and comfortable and snuggled up with the kid and thinking life's pretty good, he says, quietly, "Oh, by the way, I don't want to scare you or worry you, but ..." I would like to note that this is a HORRIBLE way to start a conversation. Here I am thinking that while I was asleep one of the carbon monoxide detectors went off and I totally missed it and he turned it off instead of waking us up, or he had gone out in the ice storm and something had happened to the car, or maybe my computer had randomly exploded (I've been having a lot of problems with lock-ups recently). Any number of bad things could have occurred and my mind is cycling through the possibilities at 2 AM, going probably 200 mph. Then, "Um, I think I saw a mouse run into Gabe's room." Now, I'd like to note that at that point I had a !!!!!!!! moment for several reasons, because that's just disgusting. Mice don't scare me, but the knowledge that one was IN MY SON'S ROOM is about enough to make me want to ritualistically slaughter something. "I mean, it could have been my hair or something, and it's late, and you know I see things when it's late, but.."

So I got up and went into Gabe's room - damn kid still doesn't sleep by himself - and pulled his mattress out of his racecar bed, since that's where Colin said he thought the thing ran. I pull out the folded, clean cardboard boxes that stack the mattress up (you'd understand if you've seen one of these things, there's this weird hole in the bed itself - probably to make it lighter - that is smaller than a crib mattress), and just as I'm getting to the bottom I see this gray thing scurry back behind the bed. There was a lot of cussing going on because there I am, standing barefoot in his room with stuff EVERYWHERE. Colin comes in and hesitates, then says he thinks he saw the thing run into one of our only two closets, both of which happen to be in the kid's room. Oh, did I mention that he told me, also while we're laying in bed, that he had seen mouse droppings in a box of unused dishes under one of our lower cabinets?

So tomorrow while Colin's at work, you will never guess who is going to go on an insane cleaning spree before calling our landlord - who is, ironically enough, the mother of a guy I went to high school with whom I absolutely adored, but not like THAT - and telling her that she ought to send someone quick or I will probably end up going insane, and that would mean she doesn't get rent.

Moral of the story: Do NOT tell your wife at 2 AM as you come to bed that you thought you saw a mouse. Seriously, let me lay in comfort a couple more hours and then go insane about it in the daylight when I can actually do things without waking up the kid.

(Okay, in all honesty I'm glad he told me or I probably would have freaked out when I got up and he informed me, instead of telling me as soon as he knew.)

A Bad Gift

2008-12-07T20:13:00.000-08:00

Today I found a cup.

By "found a cup" I don't mean that I went to a cute little antique store or that I visited a local boutique and searched high and low to find the world's most adorable collectible teacup. There was no "ooh" and "aah" over a perfect price, no negotiation because of that little chip on the rim, no rushing home to Google its origins and maker to see if it is worth anything more than what I payed for it, or if I was ripped off.

I mean that I moved furniture and I found a sippy cup.

This sippy cup was half-full of an unidentifiable liquid that had been sitting under one of our old plush rocking chairs for God only knows how long. I had no idea if it was separated milk that had gotten to the point where all the curd stuff had simply dissolved, or if it was juice from yesterday. I really would have preferred the latter because then it would have smelled like apple.

So I took said cup outside while wearing my dish gloves and thought I'd open it there, for safety's sake. I tend to be affected heavily by smells and I knew if it stank I would regret opening it indoors; the best thing I could have done if I opened that cup inside was to dump it into the toilet and spray some air freshener after I flushed the contents, which would have ended up smelling like cinnamon apple HELL. Besides, you know how frigid winter air works: you can't smell a damn thing because by the time you're inhaling, your snot has frozen the little hairs in your nostrils into hair Icepicks of Doom (yes, it has been that cold here recently). But I swear that when I opened that stupid cup I could smell EVERYTHING about it. It was either milk or chocolate Pediasure; either way it had probably been sitting around for several days too long and had formed some kind of odd congealed stuff on top that I couldn't identify or see before opening the cup. All of my ideas of not being able to smell anything outside were destroyed as soon as I dared to take a breath because trust me, I could smell that stuff, and it smelled like it was going to reach out of that cup and kill me with its bare hands. I dumped what was left onto the gravel and flung the cup around a few times away from myself and the house in hopes of getting as much of the congealed stuff out as I could, then came back inside. Guess what, the smell FOLLOWED ME. I ran over to the sink and dumped in half of a container of our lime-scented "this would destroy the scent of two-day-old dog shit in the middle of summer with one drop" dish soap into the cup and added hot water, then shook it around, and you'd never guess that I could STILL SMELL IT. So now that evil, Godforsaken cup is sitting in the sink, shut, full of hot water and soap, because you had better bet that I will NOT be the one to wash it out. I think I've done my share of dishes for one day.

A Bit Much

2008-11-29T16:00:00.000-08:00

As time passes, I'm finding that these ups and downs are a bit much for me. They're difficult to handle and deal with, and I think that the worst part is (easily) that there are far more downs than ups anymore. I have always been familiar with the concept of depression and how very powerful it can be, but right now it has surpassed the point of "tolerable" and has gone into the realm of "insane." I've dealt with this before in a similar situation, so I understand what's going on with me - as much as I possibly can, at least - but it seems like this is a spur-of-the-moment insanity that has grabbed me and thrown me around in circles until I'm too dizzy to function. Never mind that thanks to a dysfunctional air mattress, NONE of us are sleeping well, and I'm sure you can see that life in this apartment has, as of late, not been that much fun. Typically, cleaning up the house means both of us looking at each other, sighing, and jabbing one another through a cleanup routine that leaves us with a nicer house but feeling just as depressed as we began.

Meanwhile, I've been doing some soul searching in hopes of finding out what I intend to spend the rest of my life doing. My original intention was to become a choir director, but my experiences in the last couple of years have been less than positive, and while at J-Dub I changed my mind. After the kid was born, I thought I would perhaps move to an associate of science and go into psychology; problem with that being that I would have to spend far too many years in school and it would require more financing than we could manage, either now or in ten years. And I'm not really sure I could handle knowing exactly what is psychologically wrong with myself and the rest of my family. I can easily imagine the kind of hell that would result in, and while I am all for torturing loved ones to the best of your ability, I don't think I'm okay with something that may result in death - either me killing them, or them dispatching of my irritating, psychoanalyzing self.

So I've turned my head toward the only other thing that has thus far appealed to me: midwifery (wivery?). I've done some research into this; the downside would be that the nearest school in Illinois that would offer such courses is in Chicago. There's no way we'll be able to move to Chicago anytime soon, and a ten hour total commute every day is even more impossible, so for now this is something that I'm hopeful I can pull off, but I have no real expectations. I'd rather take it one day at a time, finding out information and doing what little I can to get myself to that point. Still, it feels good to know what I want to do with my life, and better to know that I've finally found something that seems to suit me. I already have a strong grasp on a lot of medical concepts and my prior knowlege of psychology should prove at least somewhat useful in learning what I need to; that way, not everything will be new information and most of it would hopefully be a refresher. Anyone who has any sort of experience with this sort of thing or who has useful advice is more than welcomed to comment.

I suppose, now, that I ought to get going. I have an hour and a half before the hubby is off work, and I had cleaning that I intended to do before then. I'm thinking I may turn DDR back on so that the kid will have something to distract him while I put away clothes and generally pick up this mess that has recently been our home. Wish me luck.

How Things Go

2008-11-19T18:31:00.000-08:00

Things around here lately have been .. Interesting.

As most of you are aware, we ended up losing our car around the end of October. The 23rd, actually, I think - it ended up being towed to Lee's Summit, Missouri, which is just outside of Kansas City. Thanks to a lot of help from my mom (mostly financial) and a lot of waiting and playing phone tag, we finally got the car back. Somewhere in there, we also ended up having the power shut off for two days or so, thanks to a gross misunderstanding on the behalf of the woman I had spoken to when we switched the power over to our new apartment from the old one. That in and of itself is a long story that may be shared later, but at this point I can't bring myself to care enough about either thing to ramble off stories and recollections and reasons; all that matters is that it's done and everything is taken care of and fixed. We have power and we have the car.

The emotional turmoil that I'm experiencing right now is inasne. I won't go into the reasons behind what I feel and think, but this is a rough patch for us. Moreso, in an odd way, for me than for "us." The one thing I miss the most is having a social life, though at this point the semblance of one that I once had has dissolved into something I joke bitterly about to myself. The only connection I really have to any of my former friends is through Facebook; an unreliable, at best, vantage from which to watch the life I wish I could have lived continue without skipping a beat. There are times I've imagined to myself what life would be like if I had won $10 million, or if I had finished college, or if our son hadn't been born; cruel as that seems to some, it's something I believe all parents are welcome and entitled to think about, especially when the parents in question are young and haven't lived the same life as their peers. Not to insinuate that I'm a party girl or that I would spend every night out at bars - I've never had much of an interest in drinking or sitting in bars with a bunch of strangers - but there are certain aspects that I know would be very different if I wasn't a mother. I would like to think I wouldn't have lost touch with so much of my past life, that so many of my friends wouldn't have felt compelled to drift away. On one hand, I hardly blame them - a woman with a child tying her to the house who can't always find reliable childcare isn't really worth inviting when "going out" doesn't necessarily mean that a nearly-two-year-old is invited - but at the same time I still wish that there was a certain consideration given that was at least attempted just after he was born. A message or wall post on Facebook is at best impersonal, while I've found that one of my friends I have no number for - and for some reason I've had a lot of resistance in getting it - and the other is constantly busy.

Which is good, in a way. It's nice to see the people I care about continue with their lives despite the hills and bumps; 80% of the time I'm kept in the know about their accomplishments, although their rough times are dealt with by other, likely more capable, closer friends. It's good to see that they're pushing for their dreams still, ensuring they accomplish the things that they have always said were important to them. Here and there I'm given an invitation to an event I likely can't attend, although most of the time I find my name included in the list of mass invites, the people who likely know the invitee or the person the party is being held for, to a degree - though few seem to be actual close friends.

It's nice to know that my old friends are continuing their lives, but there are some things that still make me sick to my stomach.

The only plus side I've had thus far is that one of my favorite blog authors, Heather Armstrong of Dooce fame, is expecting her second child in June of 2009. It was announced today at dooce.com and I could not be happier for her, knowing that she had already suffered one miscarriage and knowing too that she and her husband Jon have been going through a lot. I know Leta will make a great big sister.

An Eyeroll For The Masses

2008-10-20T12:34:00.000-07:00

Recently, the talented and insightful Heather Armstrong (AKA Dooce) wrote on her blog that she firmly believes any woman (or, really, any voter) who intends to vote for John McCain in November should reconsider their options (read the post in question here). She was relatively polite about the whole thing, if you take into account that it's her own damn blog, and she should have the right to talk about whatever she pleases as often as she pleases without suffering from the flack that is often thrown at bloggers who have gotten the opportunity to head to the mainstream with their own website and advertisement (of course, as we all now know, it is practically impossible for that poor woman to enjoy a moment of freedom on her own blog).

Anyway, I digress. The point is that Heather has the right to say or do whatever she wants on her blog. Many long-time readers have apparently gone out of their way to not only threaten to stop reading her blog, but to call her names and even threaten her personal well being. To call this "disturbing" is simply not descriptive enough, and too many of her readers have replied perfectly: individuals expecting only posts that are funny and never anything else are already grossly misled. Her sole purpose in life is not to entertain a specific group of people, but to have a place to share her views and experiences in parenthood - information that many of us have found not only useful but crucial - whatever they may be. It's a pity that she's being tortured like this, excommunicated from some of her fans because they refuse to read about politics on a personal blog. Well, tough; as Heather has said, politics matter to her right now, so she's going to blog about them. She's going to yell her opinions just as loudly as anyone else who isn't afraid to do so. She has proven that she welcomes other viewpoints and disagreement, but how is it fair to threaten her? So stop reading her blog. A few - maybe even a hundred - angry people who can't stand to see a woman empowered enough to make her views publically known aren't really going to change her livelihood. So why they've decided to threaten her openly is a point of contention to me - no doubt they're just trying to be malicious. Nobody's forcing them to read her blog or the political posts. I have absolutely no doubts in my mind that Heather is going to continue to make political statements because it's an important topic to her at the moment. This is true of a lot people, and I don't doubt that many blogs have been inundated with the attempts of many authors to explain their political standpoints.

TL;DR version:
People are treating Heather like crap for no reason. It's disturbing to think that people like them are allowed to intermingle with the more sane among us without some kind of locator device to ensure that the rest of us are safe while the lunatics are out threatening everybody else. I highly admire and respect the people who can state their opinion and disagree without being rude, crass, or threatening.

Without A Goodbye

2008-10-19T18:47:00.001-07:00

I went to pick Colin up from work in Mom's car; once we were back at Mom's, she drove us back here to our house. On the way to Mom's from Best Buy, Bobb called almost immediately and he and Colin made plans for Colin to go to Aaron's game. When we got here, to our place, Steve pulled in - maybe ten seconds later - and after Colin helped me get everything inside, he left again with a very half-assed hug. I have no idea when he'll be home and have no intention of making contact with him unless he starts it; I say that for a couple of reasons. First, because he confuses the hell out of me and I assume that he needs his time out to not think about everything that's going on, and secondly because I'm honestly really jealous that he gets to go do things and go out to have time away from Gabe with his friends and I don't. I want that same freedom, that same ability, but if I go anywhere or do anything I have to take Gabe with me. One might argue that it works out because I go to work during the day and Colin keeps the kid, but on the other hand, I keep him at night. I'm not sure where I would take an argument like this from there, except to go on about how I just want to figure out what to do, want things to be all right again as much as he does, want a chance to be an individual as much as he does but when do I get that opportunity? Exactly .. I don't.

Also, I am very tired of a screaming baby and a constantly deflating mattress.

Dreams

2008-10-18T16:00:00.000-07:00

The dreams I have anymore are odd, to say the least. I dream that I'm sitting at home in the dark, watching TV and playing with Gabe, when a truck pulls up in the driveway and repossesses the car - again. I run out crying - "We just got it back and we didn't do anything wrong!" I scream, even though in real life it's still just as gone today as it was yesterday - and beg with the man who is chaining the car up to please not take it, just give us one more day. It's some big black guy, burly and rough and dressed in mobster's clothing, and he pulls out a gun and tells me that the financier just found out that we were children, that we weren't really adults at all, and that children can't buy or own cars. So they have to take ours away. Again. It always seems, throughout the dream, that this same thing had happened the previous night in the dream-world, that it was always a different person who had some to pick the car up before, because in my dream I'm surprised to see this huge killing machine. "Back off," he tells me as he chains up the car. And then he starts to regale me with unrelated war stories, telling me about how in the Korean War his grandfather fought for his right to be an adult and own a car, and those damn people, didn't they know better? Than to fight a real man, an adult, about whether or not he could own something? He points, he laughs, and suddenly my stomach starts twisting and knotting into itself, like some horrible creature has infested me and is tearing through my intestines to try to escape. Finally, it does, and as I'm laying there bleeding to death, the mobster is laughing and waving his gun and I'm watching our car, our beautiful blue Cobalt, crawl out of my stomach and roll back into its parking space as though nothing had ever happened.

We turned the head on the other day, after deciding that, even though we haven't taken out the air conditioners, it's just too damn cold to keep the heat off. The nights are dipping down into the 30s and the days aren't getting above 65 or so. If it were March, I'd be rejoicing for this temperature change, but instead it's October and I'm dreading it. When I was in grade school, the first day the temperature passed 65, I would always beg Mom to let me wear shorts to school. I never liked shorts, never particularly thought that they looked good on me or felt good to wear - you can only burn the backs of your thighs on a sun-heated slide so many times before it gets old - but to me, wearing shorts signified that the days of wearing coats and snowboots to school were finally ending and summer break would be coming up around the corner. I miss summer break, mostly because it was something to look forward. Now that I'm not in school anymore, summer holds no more significance than winter did, except perhaps that spring and summer mean more violent storms and the potential of tornadoes.

To explain the events of the last couple of days, I'll say that yes, we have Mom's car right now. Calling this an inconvenience is an understatement, but at the moment we know there isn't anything we can do to fix it. I had been dreading this occurrence for a while and knew in the back of my head that it was going to happen; having the cell phones turned off at exactly the wrong time hardly made the whole ordeal easier. I looked out of the window by my computer, at one point, and noticed a large vehicle - somewhat like a flatbed tow truck - back into our parking lot. I think it was a combination of premonition and common sense that led me to know that it was going to happen on Thursday night, and after I took Colin to work, leaving me at home with the car, I had that sensation that I really should have gone to Mom's (looking back, I know that they had stopped by the night before and would have continued coming by, likely charging us for each trip to do so, until the police had to be brought into it). I used the man's phone to call Colin at work, and one of our mutual friends and one of Colin's co-workers, Anthony, brought him home. Now we are sans a car and have been informed that there's nothing we can do about it until Monday, because after a car is repossessed there is a 24 hour period in which the paperwork is filed, etc. From what I can tell, we will have approximately 21 days after the date of repossession (so, Thursday) to try to get our car back - this may or may not include having to pay several thousand dollars worth of fees and back payments to catch us up. I can only hope that with any luck we can manage to work this out and get our car back before that 21 days is up...

We Need To Talk

2008-10-17T11:03:00.000-07:00

Boy, do we ever.

The TL;DR version: Our car was repossessed last night. I cried a lot, Colin came home early, now Anthony is being incredibly helpful. We owe a lot of money and are going to do what we can to get it back. Apparently the bill hadn't been paid for three months and we're not placing blame right now, just agreeing that yes, it sucks, and we're gonna try to do our best. God knows we've learned from our mistakes. It's gonna be a long, difficult way to go but we'll manage.

The long version will come later.

All I Have To Say

2008-10-11T19:30:00.000-07:00

Milky Way
For the duration of the spell, hindering terrain directly in front of the target does not affect the target for the purposes of hindrance or taking damage.

Snickers
For the duration of the spell, target is affected by Tasha's Hideous Laughter.

Three Musketeers
For the duration of the spell, target receives a +1 competance bonus to all swords that deal piercing damage.

Smarties
For the duration of the spell, target receives a +4 alchemical bonus to Intelligence.

Shock Tarts
For the duration of the spell, target can shoot a lightning bolt from their fingertips once every round.

Warheads
For the duration of the spell, target gains +2 to Intimidate and +1 to Strength and Constitution.

Jaw Breakers
For the duration of the spell, target is muted.

Nerds
For the duration of the spell, target receives +2 to Intelligence and -2 to Wisdom and Charisma. Also gains an additional +6 to all Knowledge skills.

Gobstoppers
For the duration of the spell, target cannot use their mouth for any purpose, including breathing. Their mouth cannot open.

Mike & Ike
For the duration of the spell, target suffers from multiple personalities that happen to not like one another. Names are obvious.

Heath Bar
For the duration of the spell, target suffers from a fatal drug overdose and dies. Cannot be revived. Will probably win a postmortum Oscar.

Twizzler
For the duration of the spell, target is considered dizzied. Is also nauseated.

Hershey's Bar
For the duration of the spell, target becomes female. If target is already female, they suffer a -4 disorientation penalty to all ability scores, saves, and rolls.

Butterfinger
For the duration of the spell, target cannot hold any object (inanimate or live) in their hands for any length of time. Objects cannot be picked up, and objects that are being held at the spell's inception will be immediately dropped.

Airhead
For the duration of the spell, target suffers a -2 to Wisdom and Intelligence but a +4 to Charisma.

Fun Dip
For the duration of the spell, target is available in three fun flavors with an irritating "candy" stick that tastes awful.

Jolly Rancher
For the duration of the spell, target is transformed into a rotund, happy cowboy, regardless of prior gender. If the target is not already male, they also suffer a -4 disorientation penalty to all ability scores, saves, and rolls.

M&Ms
For the duration of the spell, target suffers 4d6 fire damage to their mouth after ingesting the components. However, nothing happens when they are simply held. ("They melt your mouth, not your hands.")

Skittles
For the duration of the spell, target can spit rainbows up to 10' (the rainbows have no positive or negative effects on the target or anyone else, for that matter, although they might be fun to ride on). They also have the ability to roll a large ball around and pick up inanimate and animate objects, but only while listening to addictive background music.

Caramello
For the duration of the spell, objects stick only to the target's skin, but any objects (live or inanimate) will stick. "Butterfinger" will end spell immediately.

Whatchamacallit
For the duration of the spell, target cannot remember any proper nouns (you know, the thingymabobber).

Take 5
Target is allowed to step out of combat (or any situation) for five minutes and recover the same amount of hit points, spell points, and ability damage that they would after having gotten eight continuous hours of rest (can only be used once per day).

Reece's Pieces
For the duration of the spell, target is entirely superfluous, but sure does taste good.

Reece's Peanut Butter Cup
A large, invisible animal takes a bite out of the target (cannot call shots). It cannot be summoned again for 24 hours. Damage is 2d6+spellcaster's level.

Raisinettes
For the duration of the spell, target appears to be nearly 100 years old physically. However, they are also chocolate coated, so that's good.

Whoppers
For the duration of the spell, target gains a +10 bonus to Bluff checks.

SourPatch Kids
For the duration of the spell, target becomes Calvin from "Calvin and Hobbes" (AKA small and sour, but sweet deep inside. Very deep inside).

Gummy Bears
For the duration of the spell, target gains the ability to bounce off of any inanimate object that is larger in volume than the target. Also gains +10 to all Jump checks. Negates all falling damage.

Mahjong

2008-09-29T20:47:00.000-07:00

I have taken a liking to playing mahjong, even though I consistantly manage to prove that I am absolutely no good at it.

The problem, I think, is that when I say "playing," I don't mean to imply that I open up a new game and specifically choose a certain layout, then spend the next hour pouring over strategy options and thinking through each painstaking move to ensure that it is indeed The Right Move and that I am guaranteeing myself some semblance of a win with it. No, what I mean to say is that I will find tiles that match and click on them furiously, sometimes with absolutely no regard as to whether or not I am actually able to USE those tiles according to game play rules. Of course, eventually the game gets through to me and I stop ignoring the pop-up warnings that scream, "YOU ARE A MORON," and always blabber something about blocked tiles. I do not use a strategy, nor do I make any real attempt to necessarily win the game - my only concern is with matching tiles. I tend to ignore my score and the time clock (which, unlike good ol' Solitare can apparently NOT be switched off) and only glance at the number of matches that I have left. If the number is low, that's a good warning sign to me that I probably ought to get ready to lose the game soon, because I can almost guarantee you that I will not be anywhere near winning by the time the "moves remaining" count has hit zero.

Never mind, too, the unspoken rules about pictures of flowers and seasons: just because they aren't exact matches doesn't mean that the tiles don't technically MATCH. As long as it is some semblance of a flower, it can go with any picture of bamboo and vice versa, unless of course it is a CERTAIN small single flower, in which case, while it is still a flower, it does not match bamboo or ANY OTHER FLOWER IN EXISTENCE. "No, don't click that, those flowers don't match and if you try to match them I will probably empty your bank account out and go to Bermuda," threatens my computer after the tenth time I have mistakenly tried to match that certain little flower with any other flower, after constant warnings that THESE FLOWERS DON'T MATCH. They don't, they can't, they never will, despite all of the vague help information that so cheerfully states that any picture of a flower can match any other damn picture of any other damn flower. Don't tell me I'm wrong! The help states that I am RIGHT!

And the seasons tiles? Well, apparently the seasons have been whittled away to pleasant countryside images. No matter; there is some sort of bright and relatively happy picture of green foliage and a blooming tree and somesuch, another of a winter countryside dappled by snow, a pleasant and lovely red-and-orange autumn image, and then a final tile of BROWN AND GRAY DEATHFOG.

No, really. Look at the tile.

I have to wonder sometimes; was summer too much of a drag for these people when they created the game? Or is this representing a season that we don't experience here, one of death and gloom and overwhelming haze? Most people tended to enjoy summer when they were younger, because it meant no school and fewer responsibilities. No homework, no getting up early, all that jazz. Apparently for the people at Microsoft, summer meant that they were probably going to die in an emo, hormonal rage.

One or the Other

2008-09-25T07:49:00.000-07:00

Last night I was positive, POSITIVE that what I was suffering from was Most Certainly Allergies, and would go away in a day or two given enough time and perhaps enough Zyrtec, or whatever I felt like taking at the time (we have about a billion generic over-the-counter options in this house, and of course my prescription). The symptoms were all classic allergy: eyes that yearned to be rubbed, a stuffy nose, painfully clogged sinuses, and a throat that wanted desperately to become sore because of all the snot dripping down it. Two days have gone by where we did not sleep well, mostly thanks to Gabe and what are apparently HIS allergies (a stuffed nose and difficulty breathing when he has a bink in, imagine that). Now, my throat aches, my head hurts, and my snot is trying to turn yellow - so I have to wonder if I'm looking at a sinus infection or not. I hope not, but at this point I'm not going to make any big assumptions. Instead, I am going to dope myself up on medication - including Excedrin, thank God for that stuff - and try to go about my day, including work. Colin tried to let me stay in bed a little longer, although "sleep" was basically not an option, since Gabe is fairly sure that anyone who is still in bed had probably ought to be UP RIGHT NOW and doing something interesting with him. This evening, when Colin goes to work, I will likely go to Mom's and hang out there for a while so I'm not the only one watching the rugrat, but I can't imagine her being happy about it. Actually, I can't imagine ME being happy about it. Thankfully, I don't have any laundry or anything to do, so if things do get iffy, I'm free to just leave.

For now, though .. No more post. My head hurts.

A Total Lack

2008-09-16T07:50:00.000-07:00

As for last night: nobody in town carries steel boning. I would get some kind of coiled wire and use that, but I have no intentions of cutting or tipping it myself, and I already went way over my spending limit because there are too many remnants sitting around that are just screaming for me to buy them and do something with them, maybe, if I try hard enough. So I went back to Joann's and got some of the boxed plastic boning that they have that supposedly doesn't need any kind of tape over it and can be sewn through (we'll see about that). It's nice and wide, and was the stiffest stuff they had, so I can only hope it will provide me with some semblance of the support that I need. That, plus the duck cloth, and I have some hope. I think.

So last night I started making the skirt. I thought it would be fun to cut an upside down "v" out of the front of it and put in some extra remnants I got that would look interesting, but I did something stupid: instead of connecting the sides and then cutting a "v" out of the seamless portion, I purposefully cut a "v" out of the side with the seam. I didn't realize how tacky it looked until afterwards, but I'm hoping that if I put a piece of hem tape over it in the color I'm putting around the edges, it might look okay. Or at least interesting. I really only have three options right now: continue with the plan as it is, reattach the triangles I cut out and deal with how odd that would look in the back of a skirt, or find ANOTHER piece of remnant that doesn't match the first and may not match the rest of the ensemble and attach that in. I think option number one will be what I pick, mostly because two is a lot of work to make look decent, and three is just way too complicated and will probably not end well. So, for now, I will continue with things as planned and try my best to make it work.

I think I'm going to finish up the skirt before I start work on the bodice, just because the bodice will take so much more effort, and I want to feel like I have at least accomplished something if it ends up taking longer than I think it will. I'm already starting to lose my steam; then again, I'm tired. That happens.

So today has started with a car accident in the alley next to the house. I heard the crunching from inside, and went to the one open window to see what happened. I honestly have no idea what happened, but everyone was okay so I suppose it could have been worse. Josh will be in town today, and he and I are apparently going to go to Staples so Josh can see the setup of the store and maybe do a little training? Might be too much to ask, but here's hoping. I think I'm going to go get a shower now so I'm dressed and ready to go whenever he gets into town (he's driving up from St. Louis). He said that his Tom-Tom thinks he'll br here at about 1 PM, but I don't see it taking him three hours to drive up. It doesn't take anybody three hours to get here from St. Louis.

I may do some more work on the skirt after I'm done getting dressed. We'll see - I'm not sure yet how I want to do this. If I'm even in the mood to work on it more right now.

Finding the Pieces

2008-09-15T11:27:00.000-07:00

So last night was fun. I was getting frustrated and desperately needed to feel the accomplishment of creating something, even if it was something totally pointless. Naturally, I went straight for the fabric I've had sitting around for a while: a stretchy, comfortable, soft, already-washed blue/teal/green/all odd shades of green and blue length that I've had sitting around for a couple of years now. I don't know how long I've had it or why I got it - I think it was originally for a skirt of some type for Jubilee three years ago or so - but I haven't bothered to do anything with it thus far. I contemplated a cloak, but it isn't nearly wide enough and wouldn't be long enough to manage a cloak and separate hood (a necessity for me because I am obsessive). So last night it finally became the skirt that I had been imagining. Only not as pretty.

At this point it is little more than a hemmed tube. I finally bothered to put a decent hem on the bottom, instead of being lazy and just folding up the fray and stitching it on, I went as far as rolling it over on itself and tucking the frayed edge in completely. I was rather proud of myself for that, especially because it required pinning and forethought and all of those other things I typically don't bother with. I'm hoping to put an elastic waist in, but I have no idea how to go about putting the elastic in once I've done the tube for it - and I still have to do that. Euch. I'm hoping that it will gather enough at the waist that it will look decent; I've worn a tube skirt before and they are UGLY, no matter what fabric they're made out of or what they're decorated with. I was looking for the other skirt last night, in hopes of ripping out the side seam and putting in another triangle of fabric or something to make it more full and attractive, but I couldn't find it. I assume it was packed away in the pile of "questionable clothing that we don't wear and probably need to wash before we reclassify it or get rid of it". I also found a nice swatch of a thick, resiliant black last night that I bought a while ago at Wal-Mart in their $1/yard area. However, I'm thinking instead that I might use it as the inner lining of my bodice - if, of course, that single yard of fabric is enough to serve as a lining. I'm a big person, I need a lot of cloth to make things work!

So today I got my check, and once I've gone and showered and gotten dressed, we'll head out to the bank and then hopefully to get gas, toilet paper, napkins, paper towels, and CLOTH. From Joann's. I hope.

Where To Begin

2008-09-14T14:28:00.000-07:00

Well, first and foremost, the remnants of Hurricane Ike have made their way rather unceremoniously across our area. I realize that this may not hold true for other portions of the Midwest, but we have in general been quite lucky. The last few days have been nothing but rain and humidity, plenty of clouds and absolutely no happiness when it comes to outside colors. The leaves are finally starting to realize that the cooler temperatures mean that autumn is on its way, and some of the trees are finally starting to drop - but none of them have truly begun to change. Today has been a mix of dark, foreboding gray clouds that thankfully bring no more rain, brilliant patches of blue sky lined by gray and white, and a lot of strong winds. Apparently not enough to warrant the same wind warnings that are in place south of here, but it makes for a great cross-breeze, and it's better when we can only open so many windows here (most of the windows either don't have screens, or the screens are badly ripped and unusable).

We have spent the nicer, drier days in the local parks, taking Gabe out so he can finally meet some of the other children that exist. I'm beginning to realize how strange this must seem for him, to see all these other kids, and have been asked more than once whether or not he was in daycare - I guess it really is that obvious. He doesn't know any other kids, doesn't have "friends" in the traditional sense, but it's tough to get him together with others when we really don't know any other nearby parents with children his age that would be interested in playdates. I think it's all right, though; he's a smart kid and is slowly learning that it really isn't okay to pinch or hit other children. Or us. At all. Ever.

Meanwhile, I'm hoping that tomorrow I can get started on a new project. Halloween is coming, and for now we're going to keep buying Gabe cheap, easily-stored, machine washable costumes from Wal-Mart or whatever. Not because they're well-made, or because I agree with the conditions under which they are constructed, but because they are damn cheap and can be easily put away for other children later on. But for Colin and I, I see no reason to attempt to construct hand-made costumes. Muslin is a fairly cheap fabric, and basic construction for things like shirts and drawstring pants with elastic cuffs isn't as difficult as it looks. I've thus far made a shirt, a bodice, and a tube skirt, and although none of them turned out wonderfully, I did get the experience. The skirt, I think, turned out the best, and even that was a bit of a failure, since a tube skirt is not really the most flattering thing one can end up wearing. I think at some point I'll probably end up cutting out a portion of the original side seam to the knees, or so, and add in some additional fabric so I have not only the contrast but a bit of a flare. Alternatively, I guess I could just cut the side out altogether and re-hem the thing, then use it as a top skirt .. It would look great over black .. Hmm. Anyway! Between my awesome sister-in-law Keri and some helpful online materials, I have come to the conclusion that I should be able to make a formidable bodice, maybe even with some kind of steel boning, for Halloween. The patterns and ideas I have been given are pretty straightforward, with the only potential problems coming in that I don't have a lot of experience with sewing and the last time I made a bodice, it was a totally un-boned two sided affair that was mis-assembled and put together way too quickly. All in all, it was not quality, the fabrics I chose were cheap and looked awful on me, it needed some kind of boning for support (I am a large woman, I have large needs), and the overall pattern was nice and typical, but not suited to my body shape. I have been given another idea by Keri, and have actually found similar suggestions online, although they tend to go a little farther. Keri's suggestion was to put on an old t-shirt, duct tape myself into it in the shape of the bodice that I want, and then cut my way out through the sides. It's a totally awesome idea and I look forward to getting to use the idea, although I think I'm going to take it even farther than that and use another suggestion I have found online. These instructions show basically the same thing Keri was saying, only the girl here has cut the bodice into separate pieces and has made it into a far more intricate but better-fitting affair. I think that doing something like this would be easier, and would also give me a chance to put boning in more of the pieces and to get it positioned better. Originally I think my concern would have been that I would have simply put in the boning where I thought it needed to go, but this way I can have more control over how the boning sits and can adjust the individual pieces to fit me perfectly. There are, of course, several problems with this that I can forsee: first of all, I am no good at sewing, and while I do have the luxury of having a fairly decent machine at my disposal, I have no idea how to do a good hem or how to use the machine to its maximum so that I can get a good, tight, even hem that will not be bulky but that can stand up to the massive amounts of stress that I imagine I will be putting on the fabric and the thread. Secondly, I worry about the exact way to assemble the layers. I figure I will have an inner layer that will be soft and provide some padding against the boning, a separate "layer" that will basically be the boning pockets (which may or may not end up consisting of boning tape and an extra layer of duck cloth over that, to ensure that it can handle a lot of wear and tear), then the duck to which the boning and pockets will be affixed, and finally the outer layer that will be decorative. Add on to that any additions I make, such as decorative ribbon atop the nicer outer fabric, and I am worried that I won't be able to sew through that many layers. If anyone has any recommendations, I will gladly take them! My final problem is that I know most corsets appear to be fully curved and such when not worn - I wonder if this is because they have been pre-molded thanks to wearing, or if this is a shape achieved by the ten-piece cut-and-assemble method outlined in the link I provided. Or, to go even further, if it's a shape that you get by doing yet another assembly method that I'm not aware of. I worry about these things, can you tell?

I'm also sorely tempted to not use metal boning. I am already well aware of some of the problems associated with this, thanks to the underwires in my bras. First of all, the metal CAN snap if enough pressure is put on it, but I assume that the underwire of a bra has stresses put on it that a corset could never imagine, considering that a bra's underwires are curved and end up bending on the flat side when you put a bra on, so I can only imagine that they wouldn't be able to handle the same stresses that a corset's vertical boning would. I also realize that it's easier for the metal to poke through the fabrics, and once that happens there is basically no going back, because no amount of patching will do the trick - eventually the underwire gives out or continues poking through the patches, or makes new holes elsewhere in the fabric. However, for someone who is bigger and well-endowed like I am, I worry that to go braless under these corsets without proper support would prove painful and uncomfortable. I worry that plastic boning would bend too much or not mold to my body the way metal would, and I am positive that the plastic would be more prone to breaking or snapping.

Tomorrow, assuming my check comes and is big enough, I will hopefully be able to go out and start working on assembling all of the items that I will need. I have absolutely no idea how to go about doing this on my own (Alicia, I need you back! Help!) and could totally use the guiding hand of someone who has done this before (ALICIA COME BACK! Keri, walk me through this!). Though I don't know who I would ask. (ALICIA) (Also KERI plzkthx)

Meanwhile, I have research to do on what hems work best under high-stress conditions. Also, I have to vaccum. Yikes.

A Comment on the Olympics

2008-08-22T08:15:00.000-07:00

To those who are angry because the Chinese are being "brought down" by the controversy surrounding their medals:
First, there is controversy for good reason. A lot of information has been found and then mysteriously destroyed or edited by the Chinese government. This information has consistently shown that SEVERAL of the female Chinese gymnasts - not just He - were under the current age limit (16 years of age by the Olympics in question) while competing in Beijing. Despite having proof of all of this information that has existed and yet disappeared after discovery, the IOC has thus far chosen to ignore protests from EVERY OTHER COUNTRY, not just America, and not investigate the ages of the gymnasts. Only within the last couple of days has the IOC agreed that an investigation is necessary, and who knows how long it will be before someone comes to an actual conclusion as to whether or not everything is in order (please note that while the IOC accepts government-issued passports as identification and proof of age, these documents are easily forged if it's done by the government that issued them). It might well be time for the next Olympics, and if a decision isn't reached by then, these same gymnasts - who are far more likely to be of age by then - will probably be competing again and will not be excluded from the games in 2012. China has, throughout these games, done their part to swindle the rest of the world, including giving TV networks pre-filmed fireworks footage to use during the opening, dubbing the voice of a seven-year-old girl over that of a nine-year-old girl because the original singer was not as cute as her older counterpart, and forcing migrant workers out of the city and quelling family protests over the recent devastating earthquakes to ensure that the rest of the world sees only the "new, positive" face of China and Beijing.
Second, America is well behind in the medal count for golds. China is beating us, and this holds true for gymnastics as well as in general. When Nastia Luikin tied for the gold only a couple of days ago, the tiebreaker software decided that she was the silver medalist, and one of the Chinese gymnasts was the gold medalist. America could have tried to protest this decision, but instead, we held our heads high and were proud that we were on the medal stand. There were many times when the commentators agreed that there were gymnasts from not just America but other countries that had better routines than the Chinese gymnasts that won - but nobody protested these decisions formally. The USA actually won very few gold medals in comparison to the Chinese, so those of you who are upset about whether or not the judging was unfair must be referencing another competitor who won numerous gold medals, which makes me think you're talking about Michael Phelps. Michael is probably going to be undergoing a lot of scrutiny brought forth by not only doubting, pessimistic Americans but jealous other countries who don't believe that one man could have possibly broken the old gold medal count record. He will probably have to take numerous drug tests and undergo the same sort of unwrapping that the Chinese gymnasts are about to go through. I sincerely believe he understands that this scrutiny is part of the process and is as ready for it as anyone can be - as I hope the Chinese gymnasts are.
Third and finally, America is not the only nation disputing the ages of the Chinese gymnasts. We look like the "bad guys" because the only media that we as Americans see is our own (and occasionally that of another country from a world-wide media page like MSN or Yahoo!). The USA is not the only country who wants an investigation into the ages of several of the Chinese female gymnasts. Just keep in mind that when you live in a country, you are more likely to see only what that country reports.
Keep these things in mind next time you believe that China is somehow being wronged.

Moved In

2008-08-19T17:24:00.000-07:00

Hmm.

I would start if I knew where to. We're finally done living with Mom, and if one ignores a few leftover bits of laundry that have been temporarily abandoned at her house, we could accurately say that we've moved out. It's more or less official that we're living here at 12th, and we're working slowly but steadily on our finances. It's a tough maze to navigate, but we're managing somehow. Don't ask me how, because I've no idea.

Last night at Hy-Vee, I fell. I was wearing sandals (flip-flops to some of you) and apparently the floor was wet, but there was no sign stating such. Down I went, to land on the side of my right foot and rather hard on my right knee. It was a rough tumble, and I'm sure that by tomorrow I'll have a couple of decent-sized bruises to show for my trouble. True excitement.

The palsy is improving. I would say at my worst that I had maybe 20% functionality on the left side of my face, and now I'd say that I have a good 90% back. I can tell that I still lack some control, and I have lost a slight amount of muscle tone, but it isn't so bad that I feel as though I'll never be the same. Those few weeks during and just after my diagnosis were frightening, mostly because I had no idea what was going on. Having half of your face completely out of your control out of the blue is certainly not something I would wish upon most people (although I might consider bestowing a lack of muscle control on my enemies) and saying that it is unpleasant is an understatement. Those of you who have had a friend or close family member who has experienced this will likely understand where I'm coming from and why it is so disparaging. I don't think it will be much longer before I'm back to 100%, or as close to it as I'm ever going to get. I'm hopeful, and honestly? I think it might happen.

Past that I guess I don't have much to say. I'm busy unpacking and putting everything we own away, and I'm not making as much progress as I'd like to think!

A Special Place in Hell

2008-08-03T18:28:00.000-07:00

So I haven't written in a while - a long while, in fact - for a plethora of reasons that include laziness and busy-ness. I would say "business" but that's a very different word. Anyway. There has been a lot going on here, some good things and some not-so-good. Life has been okay, which I think is a satisfactory description of how we've been.

I don't know what day I'm on since I was diagnosed. I do know that by now I should have finished my prednisone, but I haven't yet, mostly because I chose at some point last week to halve my dosage and then stop taking it completely for a couple of days to give my body some time to get off this sick-feeling steroid high. I hate what they do to me, how they made my face hurt at points from the unnatural swelling that they cause. So I decided to do something about it, to go against the recommendations on the label and do whatever the hell I want with my medication and my body, because I kind of think that's my right. If I'm more miserable on the medication than I am taking it, well, don't I have the ability to say, no, I want a couple of days off to let things get back to normal? I'm pretty sure that most medical professionals would at this point roll their eyes and shake their heads and say, you silly patient, thinking you have any right to control your medication in any way. There's a special place in hell reserved just for you. At which point, my thought becomes, well, I was heading there anyway, so knowing I just upgraded from coach to first class is kind of nice. Of course, I'm still trying to figure out what I need to do, short of killing someone, to upgrade to a VIP seat.

There have been a lot of interpersonal problems that are better discussed one-on-one recently, things involving a lot of people that classify as both "friend" and "gaming group." They are interesting problems, things that won't be easily solved either within the respective groups or outside of them - for instance, discussing these issues on a public forum (which my blog is, sort of) will really not help them, which is why I'm not going into a lot of detail. I'm hoping some of them can be fixed.

I am also hoping I will stop being a lazy jerk and start posting more.

Day Four and Three-Quarters

2008-07-23T20:32:00.000-07:00

It's funny sometimes how much a mood can change in the space of just a few hours. I now find myself run down, exhausted, moody and grouchy. Tomorrow will be working in two separate places (but not two jobs, figure THAT out), bringing Colin home, then mowing the back yard and washing the dogs. Afterwards, I have to get my birth certificate (if I can find it) to Hy-Vee - then call it an early night to get up at 6 AM on Friday. I have no idea when Colin works on Friday, if he does at all, but after I work 7A - 1P on Friday, I have to make a character and have game (somewhere). I wanted sun glasses today - good ones since I can't squint my left eye - because it sucks to have the wind blowing and dust blowing in when I can't get and keep my eyes closed to keep said dust, sun, and wind out. But we had to take Bobb out to dinner at Golden Corral, which meant that $40 - and then some, because of the tip - of my first paycheck was basically blown. Add on another $30 for gas, and suddenly that $100 is basically gone. We don't even have enough to pay the last $30 for the phone bill that would otherwise make 12th street moderately livable, so it will have to wait until the 29th when I get the rest of my check. Or the 26th, when I think Colin may get paid again.

But yeah. Generally, I'm in a bad mood. All I want is a backrub and someone to listen to me cry and whine about my problems, but Colin's instead out with Jesse, Michelle, and Bobb working on characters so that on Friday, Col can run a 4th edition D&D campaign in lieu of playing Bobb's world, since Aaron won't be able to be there. I understand that this is how he deals with his problems and concerns - namely, he does something else so he doesn't have to think about said problems - but it still irritates me. I can't tell him that I don't want him to go, but I don't want to be alone, either... It bites. A lot.

Anyway, I need to make sure Colin has clean work clothes. Never mind that it's 11 PM and I want to go to bed. Mom reminded me, and he's my husband, so it's my responsibility. I just don't have to like it.

Day Four

2008-07-23T08:09:00.000-07:00

I have lost a lot of my appetite for various reasons. Stress, of course, is first and foremost, but it doesn't help any that it's difficult to eat and drink, and that I have lost some of my sense of taste - and what's left isn't quite the same as it used to be. I eat less, and eat less often, which in my case is a good thing (I think). I'm not trying to say that I don't eat at all, or that I barely eat, only that I don't eat as much. Who knew that Bell's palsy could act as a diet plan?

Yesterday we went to get a new bank account at Bank of America. They have those awesome photo ID check cards, but I had to get my picture taken for it - which was a whole new sensation of discomfort. It was also really the first time I had to talk to someone in public that wasn't a medical professional, and it was - as I had expected it would be - awkward. Not horribly so, although I did end up explaining why I was unhappy to have my picture taken, and the woman kindly informed me that once this is over and done with, I can always come in and have my picture re-taken, no charge. I thought that was nice of her.

I think at the moment, I'm really just getting tired of this. I'm taking the prednisone like clockwork and I have yet to miss a dose, but I know that when the ten days is up, I probably won't be much better, or if I am, it will be only slightly. At this point, I hope this only lasts a couple of weeks and not the three to six months (or even the year) that some sites and some affected people report. I don't want to wait that long feeling like I'm only half a person, even though I know that my case isn't as bad as some people's, and that it could be much, much worse. It could be my whole face, I could have lost all muscle function and be droopy on one side, I could have absolutely no function in the left side. I could have been even more stubborn and avoided going into the ER even longer, likely prolonging this case and probably leaving me with even worse symptoms. Things could have been worse, I know that, but it's never easy to acknowledge that when things are as bad as you know them to be.

Unpacking is going slowly still. We don't have much done, and we still have a coffee table and couch in our bedroom. The only room that's even close to being done is the living room, and that's only because the TV and both computer desks are set up in it, but nothing else. The place is a mess and I feel bad for it, because even though I know we haven't been mistreating it, I get the impression that the apartment isn't happy about being full but a total wreck. On the plus side, it still feels more friendly than 14th street ever did, and it certainly feels more like home. That's as much as we could ask for.

Hey, if anybody sees Colin's wallet, let us know, okay?

Day Two

2008-07-21T06:57:00.000-07:00

The morning of day two sees me, I think, in higher spirits. I'm not so focused on what's difficult or impossible for me right now, I just accept what I can and can't fully do and get on with my life. I am so thankful that I didn't have a stroke; I can't imagine living with only partial (or no) use of the left side of my body. It isn't my dominant side - my mother is a leftie but I'm a rightie - but it's still kind of helpful. Like, for typing long blog posts, or making breakfast for a toddler who is SO ready to eat. Although the improvement that I had begun to see last night and very early this morning is gone (I could open the left side of my mouth a little more when I grinned), it still gives me hope that recovery is near. As long as I'm careful, I don't think anyone will notice a change in my speech patterns, although I know that while I'm at work, people WILL notice - and that can't be helped. I think it's almost more frightening that I'm okay with that. Let them notice, even stare, or ask questions if they want. I adjusted to the staring - I WAS, after all, an overweight pregnant girl, and that always draws attention. I could be upset about it, but that won't change the fact that this is here to stay for a while, if not forever in one way or another, and why be upset, then?

I have a baby to retrieve; maybe more later, when things are calm again. Much love.

Diagnosis

2008-07-20T19:29:00.000-07:00

Bell's palsy.

The name alone is enough to strike fear into the hearts of those who don't know exactly what it is. It brings forth mental images of people stranded in motorized wheelchairs, unable to fully communicate or take care of themselves. That, of course, is cerebral palsy and is not what I'm talking about. That affects a lot more of the brain and thus a lot more of the body.

Let me walk you through my last few days:

Thursday night I went into the ER thinking I had an ear infection. I was told that I didn't, but instead had a Eustachian tube dysfunction and that there was little to nothing that could be done. I had to keep taking my allergy medicine and let it clear up on its own in about a week. Friday I finally got my ears to pop (which was recommended to me by the physician I saw) and almost immediately the left side of my tongue went numb. Saturday night, while working, I realized I was having some trouble smiling fully, that the left side of my mouth wasn't responding the same way the right side was. I figured I was being a hypochondriac.

This morning, when I got up, I could not fully smile. I had trouble eating, I wasn't blinking the same way I was last night, and the left side of my face feels oddly numb, as though a dentist's anesthesia is just barely starting to wear off.

Today, after a long ER visit and a CAT scan, I have learned that I have Bell's palsy.

So let me tell you what this means to YOU: It means that when you see me I will not fully close my left eye when I blink. I cannot fully smile, nor can I puff out my cheeks. I look like a total idiot when I laugh, trust me. I have difficulty eating and drinking (the only positive side-effect of THAT being that I will potentially eat less and slower, which I should have been doing in the first place) and yes, I am aware of it. I have rather painful earaches and headaches that you will probably see me react to. If you see me popping tiny pills, it's okay - I'm on prednisone. It's a steroid, so if you notice that my cheeks are getting puffy or that I'm gaining a little weight, yes, I know, and no, I'm not proud of it. The swelling - if any occurs - should go away after my ten-day dosage is gone. It's a little creepy watching myself smile or try to squeeze my eyes shut, and I can only imagine how it will look to you when you see me. Be warned.

What this means for ME: Bell's palsy, with early treatment, usually begins to clear up within several weeks after the symptoms are at their worst (and there's no telling if this is as bad as it will get or not; rarely, both sides of the face can be affected). There's some confusion within the medical community as to what causes it: a virus, a version of herpes (I am NOT trying to tell you that I have herpes so shut up right now), or something yet unknown. Bell's palsy is a catch-all diagnosis given when doctors can't figure out what else might be causing facial paralysis, but my CAT scan was all right and the numbness and unresponsiveness is confined to my face, so tumors and a stroke have been ruled out. To me, this means that an overweight girl with self-esteem issues has been given one more reason not to like herself. I could begin to recover while taking my medication, but more typically it takes between three and six months to begin to recover, and after that, most patients are almost completely better within a year after the original onset of symptoms. There are other potential problems/symptoms that can begin at any point in time, including memory problems and difficulty with balance/walking. Obviously, my speech is a little off. One of the biggest concerns is that when one eye won't fully close (like with mine), a lot of bad things can happen to that eye if it isn't kept properly lubricated and if the dust and dirt aren't kept out. I may need to wear an eye patch, at least at night. Residual effects are totally possible, and there's a chance that after recovering - however long THAT takes - I may have lingering facial nerve problems.

Bell's palsy is basically when, for whatever reason, a very crucial nerve in the face becomes inflamed (hence the prednisone to help reduce the swelling and, hopefully, the symptoms). The face's reaction is to shut down, because without the reaction of the nerve, it doesn't know what to do.

So that's that. I have Bell's palsy.

Here's hoping for recovery.

The Wonders of Modern Medicine

2008-07-17T21:38:00.001-07:00

So as absolutely none of you know, I've spent the last few days (according to Colin it's more like five or so) struggling with an earache. I am notorious for ear problems: when I was younger I had many ear infections and suffered from ruptured eardrums (a problem that can and usually does lead to hearing problems and deafness) like nobody's business. Somewhere between the ages of three and five, I had tubes put in both ears. Ever since I have gotten an earache every couple of years, although last year I ended up with three consecutive and rather unpleasant middle ear infections although I only had one of them treated (the first I ignored, the second got treated, and the third was privy to having me use the same drops I was given for the second infection). This is because I am a stubborn bitch. I am aware of this. I freely admit this.

So today I finally got off of my rear and after Colin got off work we went to the ER, since I no longer have a doctor (thank you, Medicaid). And since everywhere else was closed, and I was tired of hurting. It was odd, in that whenever I burped or stretched, I would get a sharp, shooting pain in my ear. As of about two days ago, it had become an almost constant, dull pain that had spread into my neck, making me feel generally stiff and unhappy. So, yes, we went to the ER, and surprisingly enough we were in and out in about an hour and a half, tops, which was a very nice and unusual change. I'm not complaining. I think it helped that we went in at about 10:30 PM on a Thursday night - so be sure to plan your Quincy ER visits for about this time and you should be okay. Anyway, we go in, and the doctor - who, mind you, was very very polite and nice - informs me that, well, there isn't anything they can do (and if I come up with a cure, I should let him know, and I will probably end up very rich). Apparently I now suffer from Eustachian tube dysfunction, the type where the tube doesn't open as it should. The directions on my release forms read as follows: "Nasocort [which is a nasal steroid] 2 sprays twice day - cont with Zyrtec [one of my allergy medicines] chew gum as needed." YES THAT'S RIGHT. I have been instructed by a physician to chew gum. So, basically, this is "take your allergy medicine, get a nasal spray, chew some gum and pray to God that your ears pop and that it actually does some good sometime soon."

Kind of makes me want to cry.

So now I get to go take some Tylenol and some Zyrtec. Tomorrow I'll go to Walgreen's and procure the Nasocort, although I'm not a huge fan of snorting ANYTHING so we'll see how long that lasts. Also, my blood pressure was 130/73, which I think is kind of high. But I'm overweight, stressed, and high blood pressure runs in my family. As does heart disease. One would think that this combination of things would make me want to change something about how I live, but it turns out that I am a fat, lazy American, and therefore am probably entitled to die of a heart attack before I hit 50. I really kind of hope that doesn't happen, though - I've sworn to myself to make it to at least 100. That would be awesome.

In other news, I get to go to orientation at Hy-Vee at 10 AM on Saturday. To work in the kitchen. It's great, and I'm not nervous, because if something happens and they screw me over on, oh, anything, it's a second job so I can quit without feeling too guilty. And it means a new shirt. I am all about new shirts.

Leaving a House to Go Home

2008-07-13T08:57:00.000-07:00

With the exception of a few bags still out on the porch, we have officially gathered everything from the Broadway apartment that we intend on taking out. It has been a long process that has lasted about a month - we're three days shy of hitting our one-month mark of getting the apartment at 12th street - but I think that in the long run, it has all been worth it. This has been rough, but we've managed, and now the moving's finished and the not-so-rough work of unpacking can begin. I expect this will be interesting in that a good portion of the stuff we have to unpack consists of either baby clothes that need to be washed and stored, or items that didn't get unpacked when we moved from Jefferson to Broadway and that haven't seen the light of day in two years. Our new place consists of a mess of boxes in the game/dining room, which you can barely walk through, and progressively fewer items as you continue through the house. Right now, our couch and several other misplaced things are in our bedroom, we have no bed, and I'm pretty sure that the only things that are in the right place are the TV and a large DVD/book shelf that we got from Best Buy. And there is no way in hell that behemoth is moving anywhere in the house, because at this point I don't know if it would be worth trying to move it.

The best part about the new apartment is that Gabe will have access to pretty much the entire thing, minus the bathroom and kitchen. The layout is perfect for him, in that all of the rooms are open and connected, so hopefully he won't feel so secluded. Now, when we go into the kitchen, there are no oddly-shaped corners for us to disappear around, which always seemed to be one of his biggest problems with the old place. Never mind the fact that now, thank God, there are no flights of stairs for him to fall down - if you ignore the basement steps, which have a door anyway - so the gate that Ellie got for us to use on the steps at Broadway can be put to better use elsewhere in the house. I'm not sure how, yet, but Colin seemed to have a few creative ideas that I've since forgotten.

I worry, though, as I am wont to do, that we've barged head-first into a bad idea. Thus far, things in life have pretty much hopped out at us, and we've taken them as Fate giving us a hand. When we needed a new place, the Broadway apartment jumped out and everything worked perfectly with it, but we did little other research and didn't really look for anywhere else. We took what we were given, and for two years it was satisfactory. When we had our accident and needed a new car, it just so happened that there was a financing option for first-time buyers on, of all things, a bright blue Chevy Cobalt (the Kobold), and it was the right size and price for us. When it came time to move again, another apartment jumped us, one that was a little bigger and had a better layout, and just so happened to be rented - at least partially - by the mother of someone I went to high school with and absolutely adored. It seems scary, in some ways, how everything has worked out for us. We've had to put up with a lot of bad, rough times, a lot of financial problems in the meantime, a lot of weeks without work or enough money to make ends meet, but then out of nowhere my job came along, and I wowed the hiring people enough that even after talking to another, more experienced candidate, they still chose me. We managed to get the LINK card back and could buy groceries again, and when we needed extra time to move, my mother let us stay at her house so we weren't dealing with moving AND a total lack of air conditioning. Things have worked in our favor, as long as we have been patient.

But I can't help but wonder if we've just been too flippant about everything. Thus far, we're the only people that have been totally impressed by our new apartment. Nobody thought our car was a good idea, even though at the time it was our only viable option for transportation. I'm positive, just from hearing the occasional commentary, that despite my best efforts at looking, everyone thought I was a slacker for not having a job yet. I wonder, now, if we've been settling for what is easy and mediocre when we could have been waiting to find the absolute best.

In other news, I've written a letter to an advice columnist that I don't expect to have answered. It is as follows:

"Dear Prudie,
My mother is an aging fifty-something who works full-time and lives at home alone with our family pets. I am 22, married, have a young son, and have not been living with my mother for several years now. She is self-sufficient, but not very careful with her money, and when I was still very young she filed for bankruptcy. The problem? My mother's house is now in a state of disrepair. It is otherwise immaculately and obsessively clean, but about a year ago the joint between an add-on and the main house began to leak when it rains. Now she has ceiling tiles in this add-on room that are falling in and dripping all over electrical outlets and light fixtures. There is mold of every color and size growing on the ceilings and dropping onto the carpets, which have suffered extreme water damage, and I am worried that this mold is affecting not only my mother, but our pets and my family when we come to visit her. Last night, while she was watching our son for us and laying in bed, the ceiling in her bedroom finally gave way and fell, barely missing my son. Now there is bare, drooping insulation in her room and a sizable portion of her ceiling is missing paint and even drywall. I can only imagine what has happened to what little attic space she has, and the contents of such. She has been insisting that she could not afford to pay for these repairs when the leaking began; now I am positive she is correct. Her solution thus far is to further dip into her retirement savings, because, as she has put it, no bank will be willing to accept her credit. This is assuming, of course, that she tries to get these problems fixed at all, which I feel may be the case since she has ignored them this long. I have tried being nice, begging, pleading, and even offering to do research with and for her as to solutions to these horrible problems - but thus far she has not responded. I am the only family my mother has, and I am worried if I threaten her with distancing my family from her in order to fix her house, she will do something drastic (she suffers from clinical depression and a menagerie of other psychological disorders that she does not take her medication for, nor does she see a therapist anymore, and was once hospitalized for self-mutilating at work). How on earth do I convince my mother that there are other options than pulling money out of her retirement - and for that matter, that these repairs MUST be done immediately?"

Who wants to play Prudie for me, assuming that the question will not actually get answered by the real Prudie? Anyone? Anyone?

Hell on Earth

2008-07-11T10:09:00.000-07:00

Last night, Colin and I were out at the 14th street apartment with Jess and Shell, doing more moving work (we're really close to being done moving, by the way; tonight should be the last night of moving, and then it's all unpacking). We came back here around 11 PM, only to find my mother up with Gabe in her chair in the front room, which I thought was a little odd, because usually by then - especially if she has to be to work at 6 the next day, which she did - she would be in bed. I came in and asked her why she was still up, thinking something was wrong, and her immediate response was to ask if I had gotten her voicemail message; that she had called about half an hour prior and I hadn't picked up, so she had left a message begging me to come home immediately. It turned out that a portion of her ceiling had caved in, in her bedroom, and the drywall and paint had narrowly missed Gabe, who had been sleeping in her bed at the time. I came about this close to losing my shit when I heard that, and as I helped her clean up the mess, I lectured her on how this really should have been dealt with before this happened. Her responses were lame at best; all of this bullshit about how she had no idea it would fall in, how no bank would accept her credit and thus she wasn't able to fix it before this, etc. Excuses, really, when it comes down to it. She filed for bankruptcy years and years ago - longer than seven - and has been steadily working on her credit ever since.

So now we're back to trying to book it out of here. I'm hoping nothing else bad happens, because at this point I don't know what I would do or say. Apparently about half an hour after she got to work this morning, Mom got sick and was sent home because apparently a hospital pharmacy is not the place to be throwing up. At this point, I don't know what to do or say, and I need to go shower so I can go hang out in Staples for an hour and a half. At least I get paid for it. I also need to go get gas and tampons. YES, THAT SOUNDS LIKE FUN.

The Guy on the Corner

2008-07-09T12:37:00.000-07:00

He's an older man, probably in his late forties or early fifties. He's overweight, has short gray hair, and always wears a pair of sunglasses. He doesn't move, stares straight ahead, and usually has a couple of small bags on the ground beside him - a plastic shopping bag and a McDonald's bag, usually nothing else. Every time I've seen him, he's in the same dirty old gray t-shirt and jeans that were probably once white but are now more of a stained smoky color. I've only seen him in two places: just outside one of the entrances to Wal-Mart, or at the Broadway entrance to the Prairie Crossing shopping center, where Buffalo Wild Wings, Best Buy, Lowe's, Kohl's, and TJ Maxx are. I've never seen him walking around, or driving a car, or riding a bus. I've never seen him at home or at work, or out in the community doing something - be it shopping for groceries, or in a park, or at an event.

I guess this guy wouldn't normally have any reason to stick out in my mind. He's kind of a typical-looking man, the sort of grandpa-type figure that looks like he should be sitting out on a porch on a chilly morning in a flannel shirt, enjoying the breeze and sipping a cup of coffee. Instead, he's always holding a sign. It isn't inciting violence, nor demanding protest, or begging for the end of some war or another. It's a simple cardboard sign, maybe a foot and a half long and a foot tall, with words drawn on in black Sharpie, all capitol letters. It reads,

WILL WORK FOR FOOD
GOD BLESS

I don't see him at the entrance to Wal-Mart anymore, as I think they probably banned him from the property. I don't know where he sleeps at night, nor what he does during the day when he isn't spending hours standing outside, hoping for something, though who knows what. I have no idea if he's capable actually performing work, or what left him without a job but with too much pride to find another way to fix his problems. I don't know if he has a physical or mental condition that keeps him from working the way you or I might, if he has any education, or if he supports anyone besides himself (my guess would be no). I feel bad for the poor guy, on more than one level, and I have a lot of questions about him that will probably never get answered. I want to help - don't get me wrong - but more often than not, I'm busy trying to take care of myself, my husband, and my son. Being alive costs a lot anymore, and it's rough to take even a dollar or five out of our budget to give it to a man that I can't promise won't spend it on alcohol, or drugs, or something like that.

He isn't the only (assumedly) homeless man in Quincy. I haven't seen him for a while, but there was another older man with a Santa-type beard. He too was bigger, but he always looked pleasant enough, carrying his few belongings down Broadway. There's another that scoots around in a wheelchair; I can only assume he doesn't stand up and push or pull it out of fear that if he does, someone will realize he stole it and doesn't need it, and thus will call the police. But a seemingly disabled man in a wheelchair? Nobody will call the police on him.

Meanwhile, and totally unrelatedly, there is my mother. I think that at some point she was given the option of being either a friendly, attractive, kind woman who took life in stride and used her money responsibly but never accomplished much, or the kind of woman that didn't really like anyone, mismanaged her funds, was easily irritated and had the world's shortest temper, but could get done twice as much housework in an hour as any other human being alive. I think we know which option she took. Now, I love my mother, and I value all of the things she has done for me, but sometimes I don't understand her. Despite all of our moving efforts and the things that still need to be done in this searing heat, she expects us to clean her entire house during the day and do a menagerie of chores that, when you factor in meals and subsequent dishes, and taking care of Gabe during the day, will take ALL day from the time we get up to well after the time she comes home from work. The "best" part is when she comes home and sees what has yet to be accomplished, which leads to a mad dash on her behalf to finish up everything that still has to be done, no matter what it is, immediately after stepping inside, as though she's on some kind of time limit and if she doesn't get the living room floor vaccumed - or, at least, if SOMEONE doesn't - within the hour after she gets back, the world WILL implode and then who will vaccum? Certainly not her.

Last but not least, we have work, and yes, it has been going quite well thank you very much. I'm not a huge fan of Staples but I love being able to go to Best Buy. It's a blast. And for now, that is all.

Almost There...

2008-07-06T21:22:00.001-07:00

The last couple of weeks have been rough, which is why I haven't posted much. By "rough" I don't mean that at the end of the day we come back here a little smelly and a little sweaty after a decent day's work, get into bed, and heave a pleasant sigh that says that hey, we've done a good job and get a pat on the back and have probably accomplished something worthwhile today. By "rough" I mean that when we come back here to my mother's house, we grunt and groan and blow up the air mattress for the fortieth time and hate every minute of it. We return aching and exhausted to the point of hallucinating. We are dehydrated and stressed to the point of becoming ill in the many strange ways that stress can make us sick. We have been cleaning my mother's house and caring for it, taking care of ourselves and each other. I have started a job, Colin has been going on with his, and of course we've been caring for Gabe on top of that too. We've been cleaning at the old place and the new, packing, moving, unpacking, dealing with technicalities, paying rent, worrying over things large and small. We have been sorting for trash, keep, and give-away, either by yardsale or charity, depending on the item. We have been driving ourselves to the point of near-death day in and day out for a while now, and amidst it all have dealt with my mother's overwhelming .. Personality .. And have been attempting to keep up with some semblance of a personal life.

So saying that things have been "rough" recently does not begin to describe what has truly been going on behind the scenes. Add, on top of all that, my attempts at getting my business up and running, and for the most part you have a cast of utter failures in the play of life. It's great fun.

We're not quite there yet, but we're a huge step closer than we have been for a while now. It's difficult work to force yourself to keep going in 100F heat (not to mention the humidity) with no decent breeze, and it has been leaving Colin in the throes of heat exhaustion. I think I'm only half-surprised that I'm not yet there myself. Our mornings start early and our days always end late, without fail. It's worth it - always worth it - but it's tough to keep reminding ourselves of that when it seems like we have so little to show for it. The intention of tomorrow is more hard work, another long day, but with any luck tomorrow we will be done, or nearly so. There are several big items that simply can't come over in our poor, abused little Kobold (I know it's a Cobalt, but it's a long story) or in Glen, Aaron's land yacht. They're things that only a truck can help us with, which means that we're at the mercy of Jess and Shell until we decide to find someone else to cart our shit a few blocks.

The worst part is, after all this, I had a relatively funny post going in my head. It was amusing, it was lovely, and it was the whole reason I started typing in the first place - but like most of my brilliant ideas, I didn't get it down fast enough, so my brain has shoved it aside in place of a much better idea. Or, rather, two of them: SHOWER and SLEEP.

So here's to whatever tomorrow brings, which will hopefully NOT be an angry ex-landlord or a new landlord finding out that, um, we sort of have cats in our basement. Even though we agreed to not have even one cat until we found out whether or not our pet-agreement-thing had been accepted sometime in August. And most of all, here's to leaving a house and finally going home.

Always a Waiting Game

2008-07-01T17:05:00.000-07:00

Isn't it, though? I mean, here we are on July first and surprisingly enough (please, don't laugh) we haven't gotten moved into the new apartment. We're still barely tolerating living with my mother for the time being while we work in occasional bursts to get everything fixed and moved. We're going to be a little late on rent (already, I know, what a drag) and we've given up our landline phone (but have kept the DSL) for the sake of an extra $50 a month or something like that. It means that we'll be relying much more heavily on our cell phones, but that's nothing to complain about, especially when so many people are doing it anymore. It isn't uncommon to find families that only have cells and don't have landlines, right? Worse comes to worst, we can get Skype or actually sign up for some kind of VOIP service, though I don't think we'll have to worry about that for now.

Hopefully this week I'm going to be starting my job. For now, though, Mom has volunteered to order Jimmy John's (translation: I figure out what to get and order it and she pays) so I'm going to fix us up with dinner before I have another breakdown.

Aftereffects

2008-06-27T01:29:00.000-07:00

This is getting to be hard on me, physically and mentally. I think the mental part should be obvious - dealing with my mother, stress, the recent weather, getting started on my job, the list goes on. But my poor body's physical reactions to this have been just as unpleasant. I am exhausted, to a point I never would have thought possible. I want nothing more than to sleep for a week or two to try to feel like I'm beginning to catch up on all the sleep I've missed thus far and will miss in the future. I spend the day mildly nauseated, especially if I for whatever reason have some type of fast food for a meal. At night, I am thrust into the all-too-familiar realm of heartburn and acid reflux, and if I dare eat after dinner I suffer the consequences. Tonight, I was lucky; I had to get up, but I have yet to start hacking and choking on the acidic bile that has built up in my throat. The other night, not so much so - I woke up in a coughing fit, which is far more like the previous symptoms I suffered when this last afflicted me, some fifteen months ago. Granted, it is an occasional demon, but it has crept up on me for the last few days without warning and I haven't appreciated it at all. And no, for those of you who are screaming, "Wow, if this last happened when you were pregnant, then maybe you are!" I'd like to say that I've taken three tests and they've all been negative, and last time Colin knew before I did - and this time he has no premonitions. We've been preventing, to a not-so-dependable degree, through the charting method. I haven't been doing basal body temperatures because 1) I am forgetful and 2) I would probably lose the thermometer. At the moment, condoms are nearly not an option because they would likely make Mom uncomfortable to have about and we've no good way to hide them, and I am unable to use most forms of birth control: hormonal treatments have made me ill in various unpleasant ways and even the plain copper IUD gave me problems that made it pointless to continue using. I have taken this as my body's sign that it doesn't want to be messed with, and considering some of the symptoms I suffered (debilitating cramps, horrible migraine headaches when I have otherwise never had a migraine, incredibly heavy bleeding when I already bleed well enough on my own, thank you, etc) I have no intention of arguing with it. The NuvaRing was functional enough until I realized that I had not been given a pivotal piece of information: you are only to use it at a certain point in your cycle, and otherwise it not only may not be as effective, but it will shift your cycle in whatever directions it pleases, and it will take months to adjust itself. I no longer remember how long it has been since I stopped using the ring, but my cycle is still off-kilter and shifts by several days (backwards, usually, which I'd like to think means it's going back to its old tendencies of the beginning of the month) here and there. The acid reflux can usually be treated; it's partially my own fault for giving into temptation and proving my low willpower by eating after when I know I ought to as a rule. Granted, waking up and having to stay that way for upwards of an hour, if not two, is irritating. This is the second time I've been up tonight, and thankfully the first time was treatable by spending a few minutes upright and doing my best not to think about the lingering pain in the back of my throat. The second time I wasn't quite so lucky, and I was forced to get up. I feigned a visit to the bathroom to retrieve some Tums, and six wintergreen extra-strength chalk tablets later (yes, above the reccommended four max, I know) I am out in the kitchen on Colin's computer, typing this and downing a glass of milk (about 16 ounces). This is routine when I have acid problems; the Tums are always my first line of defense, although they rarely work, much less really help anymore. I always go for the milk next, because given enough time (and moo juice) I can typically fix the problem enough to go back to bed. I do my best to sleep on my left side, though it doesn't help much. One would think that these late-night excursions would keep me from going back to my old eating habits, but c'est la vie.

The weather has been another monster of its own. Thunderstorms left and right for days, now, and I'm getting downright tired of it. They keep me up late, get me up early, and wake me out of a dead sleep at all hours. If I'm already up for whatever reason, they gleefully keep me that way. I get the impression that I'm just having all my dislikes and irritations lumped on me at once for the pleasure of a giggling deity.

Moving is a seperate problem that isn't worth discussing right now, if only because I could gag just thinking about the massive amount of work left to do, and how I sincerely don't believe any of it will be done by our self-set July 1st deadline.

One more half-cup of milk should do the trick, I think. I still have to clear my throat, and when I do, I still get up acidic phlegm vaguely reminiscent of chicken egg rolls.

Arg

2008-06-18T12:19:00.000-07:00

My mother has a lazy susan in her house, in a side cabinet at floor-level. It's actually two shelves, with the lazy susan on the top shelf, and on this lazy susan - and the shelf below - there are many fascinating things that are totally inappropriate for a baby to play with. Seasonings (including chili powder, can't you imagine THAT hospital visit?), cooking sprays, glass bottles of all shapes and sizes, rather heavy canned goods, and a menagerie of other things that a one-year-old probably shouldn't be allowed to play with. Of course, this is a moot point, considering he's sitting in front of that cabinet right now, pulling things out and stacking them on the floor. Stacking things is a relatively new concept; he has seen us do it with his blocks and Legos, but has never actually attempted the feat himself. He's usually content to just watch us throw around his toys so he has the opportunity to knock them over again, our beloved little Godzilla. So he's stacking cans, miniature jars of off-brand baby food used for making homemade dog treats, empty decorative bottles of olive oil, and empty glass salt and pepper shakers. Naturally, he only usually succeeds in getting these Towers of Hell about two objects high, at which point he gives up temporarily and seeks refuge in pulling the protective caps off of the spray-tops of bottles of cooking spray. I really, really like the concept of olive oil-flavored cooking spray, but I don't like the idea of an olive oil-flavored baby. I don't think we have a roast pan big enough for him anymore.

I could just take these things away from him and close the door again, although there's no real way to baby-proof that particular cabinet. There's just one fatal flaw with this plan: doing so would make him scream. Today hasn't been a particularly bad day - or good, neutral really - but the idea of ruining the otherwise lovely mood of a content child has me edgy, so for now, I risk temporary blindness. Well, HIS temporary blindness. This has nothing to do with MY well-being.

On Sunday, our goober touched the stove. Let me be more specific: for the first time, he decided out of nowhere that it would be a REALLY GOOD IDEA to reach up and just kind of put a couple of fingers on that hot pan up there. Yeah, that one, with the food in it and the burner on underneath. It's funny how you can turn your back for all of three point four seconds, and during those few seconds a child can go from being across the room irritating your spouse to trying to singe off a couple layers of skin. This has never been a problem before, and I guess we weren't really ready for it, because afterwards, since neither of us actually saw him make physical contact with the pan, we kissed him and hugged him and told him it was okay, and then wondered for the next ten minutes why he was still flinging around his left hand and screaming for what seemed like no good reason. Does this make us bad parents? Probably, but I don't see anybody revoking my license - OH WAIT NOBODY GAVE ME ONE. That's the problem.

So we took him to the emergency room about two hours later, after stuffing him with lunch and breakfast simultaneously because let's face it, we knew we'd be there a good three or four hours, and that meant no lunch for Gabe. We got baths, cleaned up, and almost made it out the door just over two hours after he had originally touched the pan. He had big red blisters on the pads of both the index and middle fingers of his left hand, and it pissed him off, naturally. We got there, waited a while in the ER, then got to go to something called "urgent care," which really means "we figure whatever you've got isn't going to kill you in the next day or so, so you can sit here and wait extra-long in an eight-by six room with no magazines or cell phone service and a bunch of things your kid can't touch so you'll be forced to listen to him scream during your hour and a half wait." So we sat. And waited. Why? So a nurse could come in right out of 1982 (well, his hair did, at least) and ask us what's wrong, so we could tell him exactly what we told the nurses up front, and then twenty minutes later a doctor could come in and tell us yeah, he burned his fingers, here's some cream you can put on that, but I'm too busy to do it so a nurse is going to come in after me to do all of the actual work, and oh yeah, she'll bring you the cream too. After being assaulted by three more nurses in fairly rapid succession, we escaped with our lives. Barely.

His fingers are looking better, now, and he isn't acting as though his fingers are causing him any real pain anymore. Which I suppose is progress, considering what could have gone wrong if he had maybe touched that pan a millisecond longer than what he did.

On the plus side, it turns out he's about 32" long and weighs 24 lbs 6 oz, so that's not bad at all, right?

Also, we've been doing so much work here at Mom's that we're not getting anything done in the places it needs to be done: say, for instance, the new apartment.

My paragraphs are getting shorter. I should stop.

EMPLOYED

2008-06-17T08:08:00.001-07:00

I AM

A Good Start

2008-06-16T17:15:00.000-07:00

I was kind of hoping that when I spoke to the gentleman who is doing the hiring for the position I want that after the phone interview he would say something akin to, "Hey, you know what, forget the other guy I was talking to. I want to hire YOU." Granted, it was nice to hear him say that I was the frontrunner out of his options and he thought I had answered all of his questions correctly and oh, yeah, he liked my personality too and thought I was bubbly (was he talking to me when he came to that conclusion?) but it wasn't the exact thing I was hoping to hear. I realize that I can't make his decisions for him, but I did my best to answer as honestly as I could, while still keeping in mind the stereotypical answers that every hiring company wants to hear from its potential employees. I won't lie and say that I'm not worried about whether or not I'll get this job - I'm not that cocky - but I'd like to think I have some kind of a chance. Supposedly I'll find out tomorrow whether or not he has chosen me. Cross your fingers for me, will ya?

The water is still rising here. Alicia called me the other day in a panic, worried by my sandbagging post that the water had risen far enough to start affecting a good portion of the city, so let me clarify: the majority of Quincy is up on a bluff, giving the advantage of several stories worth of space between the river and the city. There ARE businesses and parks down by the river that have been flooded out, and our incoming bridge (Quincy Memorial bridge) has been closed down, so Bayview (usually outgoing only) is now two lanes, one way each. Also, our water treatment center is down there, and though they're sandbagging it and trying to prevent the water from getting up to it, we've been put under a water warning and people are preparing for the treatment center go to under. If it does, we can't use tapwater anymore, so we're stocking up on bottled water, and putting aside containers of tap water so that we have something to wash clothes in, just in case. As of right now, there are supposedly no actual warnings out about the water and the city doesn't anticipate the water treatment plant being shut down, but then again, they were still saying that the Memorial Bridge wouldn't be shut down up until the evening before, at which point they were STILL labeling that as a mere rumor. 7 AM the next day, they decided that yeah, uh, the bridge was closing. Because nobody saw that one coming.

It appears that I'm boring, and thus, I've nothing else. Hmm.

In Memoriam: Tim Russert

2008-06-13T15:35:00.000-07:00

The news world has lost a great man.

Earlier today, newsanchor and longtime mediator of Meet The Press on NBC, Tim Russert, collapsed in his office at the Washington DC bureau and was pronounced dead despite the efforts of EMS and other officials. Tim Russert had worked for NBC for over two decades and was a dedicated family man, a loving father and husband, and a talented journalist who has overseen a great deal of election coverage during his many years of service to the media and to the world.

My deepest sympathies go out to his family and friends.

In other news, today we let Esy know that we're moving. He didn't sound happy, but hey, we haven't been happy at our apartment either. It is in dire need of cleaning, and to be honest I'm sort of upset that there's game tonight, only because so much still has to be done and it's going to get put off yet another day. I suppose there isn't much I can do about that, and I know that Colin's desperate to get out and do things with other people.

I'm also very, very sore from sandbagging yesterday. And sunburned. But it was well worth it. The river is going to crest at levels mere feet below the 1993 river crests that destroyed so many homes in so many states. Des Moines, Iowa, is being evacuated because the city is flooding. The last time this happened, I was seven, and the most I remember is watching on TV as the Ayerco gas station across the river in West Quincy exploded in a fiery ball of ominous black smoke. So the question becomes, what will happen this time? What if the levees break again, or if someone does something stupid and breaks it on their own? It doesn't affect the majority of Quincy, thanks to the fact that we're up on the bluffs and thus the river would have to rise some two or three extra stories in order to affect the city itself. But there are all sorts of buildings and parks that are off the bluffs that will flood, and have flooded already. Sigh.

Doing Some Work

2008-06-12T12:33:00.000-07:00

Today is a day of exhaustion, and it's only 2:30 PM! We have spent today very busy, and very baby-less, which has been fine with us. We're dirty - okay, well, we showered - and we're tired and blistered and our backs and knees ache. But it was worthwhile. What were we doing today?

SANDBAGGING!

Also, today my mother said the word "balls". In reference to my son's testicles. I have never heard her use that word before in that way.

That is all.

Darn You, Esther

2008-06-11T21:44:00.001-07:00

All right, so I'm darning someone I hardly know. But still. She posted some questions on her blog, and now I'm forced to copy and paste the questions onto mine, because I can't help myself and it's late, and I'm in a sort of odd mood that's better left to be described later, after some sleep and thought. Therefore, I present to you, my not-so-faithful readers... ESTHER'S QUESTIONS!

What is...
• 1 - What is something you dislike about yourself?
• 2 - What is something you do well?
• 3 - What is your favourite room in your home and why?
• 4 - What is a good neighbour?
• 5 - What is the worst thing parents can do to their children?
• 6 - What is your favourite time of day?
• 7 - What is your idea of a dull evening?

My answers:

1) I have no gray area. I am a creature of extremes, both good and bad, and it's tough for me to acknowledge the existence of anything other than what I see. I will almost always gravitate toward the option that will end in being a self-defeating irritation if at all possible, especially when I'm already depressed. This is a fault that I'm obviously aware of, and working on to the best of my abilities.
2) I'd like to think that I'm a good roleplayer, as stupid as that sounds. I could say listener, or that I'm good at giving advice (this is when you nod and smile slowly like you think I'm right), but all that comes up in my head for an answer is something that, predictibly enough, involves game. I think I roleplay well because my imagination is immense and often uncontrollable, so I might as well put it to good use with something, right?
3) This is a kind of difficult question to answer because I can answer it for three different places. For the apartment on Broadway my answer has to be the bedroom, and not for any weird/kinky reasons. Just because the windows are overlooking Broadway, it's comfy, and I can lay down there and think - not because it's especially tidy or well-decorated or anything (it isn't). For Mom's house, which is where we're currently staying, I'd have to say my favorite room is a tie between the kitchen and the front room. I say this because the kitchen's always bright and there is FOOD HERE, and the living room because it's where we're currently sleeping, and also where the TV is. These make the living room acceptable. As for the new apartment on 12th, I have no idea yet. It's tough to tell which will be my favorite room, but I can't wait to find out.
4) A good neighbor is someone that actually goes out of their way to be a neighbor and not just a random stranger that shares a building or block with you (ie our neighbors at Broadway). The people all around Mom's house are neighbors, people that I have more or less known my entire life (with the exception of a few that have moved here and there). I know them by name, they've known me since either I was a baby, or since I was six or so, and have known my mom too - and sometimes even my grandparents from when this was still THEIR house. I can go over there if need be, I know their names, and when we're all outside we stop to talk to one another, or at least wave and say hi. We're interested in each other's well-being, not because it's just the right thing to do but because we actually all know each other and feel a bond as neighbors that makes us want to watch out for one another.
5) This is a tough question to answer and I'm not really sure I can answer it once over and be satisified, but I'll try. I think that ONE of the worst things that parents can do to their children is to raise their children the exact opposite of the way they want their children to live later on. A first impression is everything, and if a parent teaches their child to be irresponsible and manage money badly from the get go, then that's all that poor kid is going to know, and chances are that parent is going to pass down their fiscal irresponsibility, and end up with a child who won't be able to take care of their parents in their old age any better than he can take care of himself.
6) I'm an afternoon/evening person, even though I stay up late - or would if I were able. Anymore, late is midnight, and that's pushing it. Anyway. I like the afternoon, because you know you still have a lot of day left but it isn't incredibly early with ALL of the day ahead of you still. Evening's just nice because you know that the day's almost over and you've gotten a lot done, but you still have a bit of time left to tie up loose ends and maybe enjoy yourself.
7) A dull evening? Easy. One where I sit around all night, not because there isn't anything to do, but because there's nothing that I WANT to do. That's always rough. It's tough to remind myself when I'm in a funk of not really wanting to do anything that I'm bored because of my own inability to decide what I want to do. Anymore, though, it has worked out in that the evening tends to end before I figure out what's wrong, and I get to go to sleep!

All right, so that's all. I shall ramble more later, when I know (at least a little better) what's going on in my head. Thank you, Esther!

It's About Time

2008-06-11T12:16:00.000-07:00

Seriously, it is.

In November of 2006, we were living at Jefferson street still in a three-bedroom house with a grand total of three other couples, one of which lived briefly in the living room. Colin worked until 11 PM or midnight, I was job-searching, and we were nervously awaiting the arrival of our first child in April. I was 20, Colin had just turned 23, we were unwed, and we had very little going for us. We knew we needed out of the overcrowded house, mostly because there wasn't even space in our tiny bedroom for a crib, much less space in the house for much-needed baby items.

So we were surprised, to say the least, when while driving down Broadway one day we spotted a red and yellow sign on the lawn of an oversized house that declared there was an apartment for rent. We immediately called the number and found out that while the place was only a one-bedroom, it was big. We got to look at it later that day, and were so desperate that despite the $350 a month we would have to drop, we would sign for the place immediately. Within two days, we were moving out of Jefferson into our own apartment. It was big, for sure, with a combination kitchen/dining room, a large bathroom, one huge closet in the living room, and .. Well, the living room was huge. At the time we managed to overlook the fact that the walls in the house were only about three feet tall before the slant of the roof kicked in, the fact that it was an attic apartment and thus was up two flights of stairs (which was horrible when you're pregnant), that the central air didn't really work as well as it should, and oh yeah, that the living room had no windows. At all. Anywhere. None.

But we overlooked those problems like the desperate parents-to-be that we were. We said goodbye to Jefferson and by the end of the month were residents of the Broadway apartment, despite those problems, and the numerous others that cropped up over time. We dealt because we were happy that we had just managed to find someplace that was ours, and livable. We had privacy again, could walk around in whatever we wanted, could use rooms whenever we pleased. There were no washer and dryer hookups, no basement access (bad in tornado alley), no way to gate off the second flight of stairs that was actually inside of our apartment. Two of the few windows we had leaked like nobody's business and some of them didn't work or couldn't be used for whatever reason. We had no water pressure and little hot water. Our door didn't shut all the way and only barely locked.

About a year later, we knew we needed out. Gabe was crawling and finding it easy to get around our barriers. We had to shut the cats out of the bedroom because the bedroom held more storage of things we hadn't had the space to unpack, and when they weren't trying to pee on things, they were rifling through our belongings at all hours of the night. The single bedroom arrangement would, we knew, eventually become intolerable. Our combination living room, game room, storage room, relaxation room was big, but also stuffy, and it was nigh impossible to light it according to our standards. Without windows there, it made it seem like we were living in a dungeon, and because it had the most space and it was where Gabe's toys were, we spent more time in that windowless room than anywhere else in the house. We did some looking, but when we managed to find something, it would fall through for whatever reason: horrible neighborhood, frightening neighbors, impossible rent, credit checks we couldn't dream of passing. We dreaded going home, and ended up having numerous arguments about how awful it was to have to go back to that place, how neither of us ever wanted to but how we always HAD to. Going back to Broadway at the end of a day spent out was like doing a dreaded chore, and we were always anxious to leave again.

So you can imagine our surprise when last week were driving down 12th street and saw a sign stating that an apartment was for rent right next to Pair-A-Dice Hobbies. It was a two-story building, and while it had no yard, we weren't in any state to be picky. We called.

They were questionable on pets. Turned out the place was owned by the bank right across the street, which meant at the very least they would be reliable when fixing things (more reliable than, say, our current landlord). The rent was the same as what we're paying now and the house was trailer-style, an old converted two-story house made into two separate apartments. There were washer/dryer hookups in the basement, and technically only one small bedroom, although some arranging could mean two. We weren't in any place to argue, so we went to go look.

Six rooms total, including a much smaller bathroom and a relatively smaller kitchen, but with separate dining room. A baby-sized room, a living room, and a front room that, despite the door to the porch, would make a good bedroom. There were two fireplace mantles in two of the rooms, even though the fireplaces had long since been blocked off. It was the only one with basement access, and there was a door down to it from the kitchen. A gas stove, which was Colin's big "want", and not much counter space though that could be worked with. A single-side sink, which was disappointing, but workable too. The water pressure in the shower and from all the taps was good, the bathroom had a medicine cabinet, and we were told we'd be allowed to store things down in the basement. There were no stairs that weren't already blocked off, and a small back porch onto which we could put chairs or even a grill. It needed work - painting, cleaning, retouching - but we were told that we were welcome to do the small stuff, as long as we okayed it all with the bank first. The apartment was baby safe, homey, and had windows in every damn room.

Today, we signed the papers and put money down on that apartment, and were in exchange given two keys.

We are moving.

Sometimes I Wonder

2008-06-09T16:48:00.000-07:00

Dinner is always difficult for us. Dooce's post today - well, the first one from today - has reminded me of how finicky children are sometimes. Take Gabe for instance (proof that I understand a bit of how Leta acts): this child will eat macaroni and cheese, and that is IT. Mind you, there are ways around this. For instance, chicken nuggets are okay, but only if accompanied by mac and cheese. He won't eat my homemade salmon patties alone, but if I cut them up and put them in a cup of Easy Mac - I love that stuff, one serving in an easily-disposed cup! - he'll eat them, to a degree. Ice cream is also acceptable, thankfully without macaroni, because otherwise I think he would never get ice cream. I am not making chocolate macaroni. Ever.

We've been here at my mother's house for five days now, and will probably still be here tonight and tomorrow. The heat wave has given up but only for today, so even if we did get to go home, it would only be for tonight since Colin's at work right now. Tomorrow is going to be well into the 80s whether or not we like it, so we would be heading back this way. I've been waiting for a call about the apartment we looked at and any potential jobs, and haven't gotten anything yet. It's more than a little disappointing, but I understand that what will happen, will happen. Hopefully I'll continue to have the necessary patience to wait this through. My assumption is that I'm not getting either of the jobs I was waiting for, and that we won't be getting the apartment either. It makes me feel kind of sick.

Wow

2008-06-06T23:12:00.000-07:00

So.. It turns out that I have a lot to talk about. Let's see how much of it I successfully get through.

First, the apartment. The heat around this part of the nation has been astronomical - we've been some twenty degrees above average, meaning that our 75 degree days have been topping out over 90 on more than one occasion. I suppose that if our situation was a little different it wouldn't be such a problem, but consider this: we live in the attic - third story - of a building. The living room is our main room and also the biggest, has a vaulted ceiling (but also has the shorter walls with low slants, as one might expect from an apartment like this), and - oh yeah - has no windows. None. The nearest "window" is the door down the stairs that leads to our apartment, and since it has no extra screen door and is oh SEVEN FEET TALL there is no way we're leaving it open. Also our downstairs neighbors are untrustworthy, creepy people. Mind you, we have central air. We're the only apartment in the five apartments in this building that is so lucky. Because of this, we lack any easy way - okay, ANY way - to install window units. And of course, because our AC unit has gone unserviced and is trying so hard to cool off an apartment three floors away with huge ceilings, it's overheating itself and thus is doing no good. Fans don't help, even if the windows are open - although sometimes it isn't worth opening them. So we swelter - two adults, a one-year-old, and two cats. Our thermostat's thermometer only goes up to 90, and it's always pushing that mark, so my assumption is that it's typically between 85 and 100 up here if one ignores the humidity, which always makes things worse.

So we and our meager budget are apartment searching. We naturally can't afford to pay more a month than what we're paying now, which is tough to beat in this area without delving into the slums/government housing and I just don't feel safe down there. We've spent the last two days and one night at my mom's house, which despite its caving-in back roof, has working central air. It's kind of a defining factor. It makes sleeping on the floor on an air mattress and putting up with her on-edge attitude almost worthwhile. Better than not sleeping and being unable to cool down, which is what I was doing the day before we decided to go stay at Mom's a while.

We have an apartment that we were looking at, one owned by a local bank. It's a nice place, considering - an unfinished basement with washer/dryer hookups that we have sole indoor access to, a dining room, two bedrooms, a living room, and a very small bathroom with a pathetic wanna-be shower. It needs touchups, some new curtains, and a good cleaning, but also has dedicated parking out back and a small area where we could put a grill - and a front deck that we could put chairs, or at least a plant, on. It's also on the first story, as opposed to the third. Oh, yeah, and IT HAS WINDOWS EVERYWHERE. The fact that it doesn't have central air isn't such a problem, since we technically own two window units - a large one that could probably cool half the apartment, and a smaller one that could take care of the other half - that are "in storage" at Aaron and Kellie's. Meaning, of course, that we left them there as we've no way to transport either and have nowhere to put them, ah ha ha. Ha.

The problem is that while this awesome new much-wanted apartment would be the same price as what we're paying now - DEAR GOD - it was already applied for by another person before we even went to look at it. There's a possibility that their application will be denied for whatever reason, but even if that ends up being the case, ours may well be denied too. We both have horrible credit and I don't have a job yet. We're hoping, but not getting our hopes up too much.

As for jobs, that too is a "rant" in and of itself. I have had an offer from a hiring company that hires out for HP - yes, Hewlett-Packard - that wants me to work at Best Buy - ha ha! - and potentially somewhere else as a product rep. At $15 an hour and only working weekends for 13 to 14.5 hours, it's a steal of a job, but not enough to actually help us get ahead on our bills. I'm hoping to hear back and be told that HEY I HAVE A JOB NOW, but I would have to get a second job on top of that, which I'm also working on. It would probably only be a minimum wage job, but the amount of money that would be coming in total would be well worth the effort in the long run. We could get ahead and stop having the immature, worried, guilt-fueled arguments that we've been having recently. It would be one thing that would no longer be a nervous concern, and the best part would be not having to worry about our electricity being shut off, or having to avoid our lurking landlord because he's looking for overdue rent from last month, much less THIS month, that we still don't have.

So that's it. This is a Friday that Mom was supposed to take Gabe, and she did, so he's assuredly sleeping peacefully in the cool breeze there while we're sweating our asses off up here, trying to figure out how to spend our baby-free evening. The worst part? We're probably just going to shut everything off, open the windows, and go back to Mom's in hope of cooling back down and getting a couple of hours of well-deserved sleep. Colin has already stated his dislike of this idea, though only because he doesn't feel well (too much Mountain Dew) and thus doesn't want to leave the house again, but I know that getting back out of the heat will probably help him cheer up a bit, if not feel even better. It was a little warm at Bobb's house as it was, and we weren't in the car long enough to have really gotten the cool down that we so desperately needed.

Mayhaps tomorrow I'll share a little insight to the 2 AM tornado warning we had a few days ago, and the subsequent hail-ridden car ride to the hospital. Not because anybody was hurt or sick, but because we have no basement access here, and that's the nearest safe place for us to go where we won't have to beg for admission. For now, however, Colin's already asleep on the sofa, so I'm going to see if I can't wake him up and get him to put his pants back on. I think I'll be driving.

I Hate This

2008-06-02T08:24:00.000-07:00

More specifically, I hate it when he acts like this.

More often than not, recently, Colin has been getting into a very deep depressive funk where he decides that all of our money problems are not only his responsibility to fix alone, but are also totally and completely his fault. He doesn't decide this because he ever has the facts to back it up, but because it's more convenient for him and gives him one more thing to be depressed about. The worst part is that when I try to tell him that we're in this together - we got into debt together, we'll ride it through, and we'll get back out with each other - he takes that as his cue to throw the blame my way, and though he'll never admit he's thinking it because he says it isn't worth mentioning, he's fairly sure that all of this is now MY fault because I obviously have no interest in finding a job and am not actually trying. Okay, well, right this second I'm not trying. I'll admit that.

There's a sense of martyrdom about him: if it can't be totally his fault so he can feel bad about it, he can't take any blame at all and thus it must be my problem because I am the only other convenient person. I tend not to appreciate this stance, because while I have no problem understanding that yes, some of this is my issue too and I am just as responsible for our financial turmoil as he is, I DO have a problem sitting back and taking sole responsibility for all of this crap. However, the only time I can get him to admit that yes, he is thinking this is my fault for not finding a job yet, is when we're having a horrible argument - the same argument we tend to have when we find ourselves in the hole - and thus when it actually matters, it doesn't get brought up. Naturally this means it's cannon fodder for the next big two-day fight.

So now while he sleeps instead of trying to fix his issues, I'm going to get a shower and go back out and attempt to fix some of mine again - with any luck, by finding a job. Thus far, no dice, although I've been purposefully avoiding the fast food chains because I've seen what the golden arches have done to Colin and I'm none too enthused about getting fryer grease burns all over my hands and arms. But it seems like this is one of those situations where my options are becoming increasingly limited, and my best choice is to simply bite the bit and do the shit I don't really want to do. I realize I'm being a bit emo about this whole thing, but I'm doing my best not to go overboard with it. There's only space in this small apartment for one crying emo kid, and I don't want it to be me.

Selfish Letters

2008-05-17T17:04:00.000-07:00

I have chosen to get rid of this post in lieu of realizing that it did no good and was very silly.

Been Waiting

2008-05-15T17:57:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow has been a long time in coming.

In spring of 2005, one semester after I did, Colin started attending JWCC. There was always the underlying knowledge that it's "just" a community college, but that was usually overshadowed by the fact that nobody else in his family managed to attain a degree - all of them either avoided attending college, or, more often than not, dropped out before graduation. We have gone through a lot with this ordeal: monetary problems, attaining loans we'll never be able to pay back, long hours and late nights, unbelievable stress, and a lot of problems revolving around confusion as to how many classes were left and what they were. But tomorrow, all of that comes to a head. All of it is proven worthwhile.

He almost didn't get that assinine portfolio done, nearly didn't get to walk (he missed the signup for the ceremony and cap/gown ordering by five months). We almost didn't have the money for his cap and gown. We may not be able to have a fancy celebration.

But tomorrow?

Tomorrow, Colin graduates from college.

I could make a bunch of bullshit excuses about how it's "just" an associate in science, that it isn't a real finalized four-year degree, that while it's nice and all, it doesn't really show much to a company. The thing is that I can't bring myself to actually say any of that because I don't feel it. I'm proud of him, that's what I am - so incredibly proud that I'm nearly bursting. I get to watch him walk, and more importantly, he's done with this leg of his journey. There nearly aren't words for the pride I have in him, and I know that tomorrow, when he walks across that stage, I am going to cheer. I will cheer, scream, and cry. Because my husband? Yeah. He got his degree. He graduated from college.

Dooce's Interview and Other Stuff

2008-05-14T07:26:00.000-07:00

Yes, like so many others, I have something to say about this interview.

I was incredibly excited about watching this live on the Today Show. I'll selfishly admit that it wasn't particularly because I thought it would be awesome to see the profession and usefulness of blogging finally brought to the forefront in such a public, all-encompassing way - the meeting of television and the Internet always seems to finalize the point that the web has taken over the media spotlight - but because I totally thought it would be fun to watch Heather Armstrong kick ass on national television again. Like she has on Good Morning America, Nightline, and even a - gasp! - local station in Utah.

So when the time rolled around, I grabbed Gabe and sat down in front of our old gifted TV - circa 1750 I'm pretty sure - as if I was back watching Saturday morning cartoons. Which I never watched. Col came by and laughed as I sat there, having done little else so far that morning past get up and feed Gabe breakfast, excited and even a little bouncy because that is my IDOL, man, screw you, you're just my husband and I only married you. This woman INSPIRED me. To, you know, do stuff! Jesus!

So there I sat, and with every passing second I became more and more disappointed. I've not seen much of Hota Kotb and have never had a personal problem with Kathie Lee like so many others profess to have, but I could feel that sense of utter dread the moment the live interview started.

There was Heather, looking gorgeous and composed, and there were Hota and KLG, sitting around and acting like badly-prepped ditzes. Hota was okay, KLG was disgustingly uninformed and it was fairly obvious (come on, she's "afraid" of computers) that she had done absolutely no research herself. Not to mention that a fear of computers and the Internet made her a kind of bad choice for this sort of interview. She seemed to still be feeling the fallout from all of the time she discussed her children on TV years ago, and thus gave Heather some psychic grief for basically doing the same thing and being able to better handle the negative criticism she unfortunately suffers daily. Overall, the interview did a great job of totally missing all the positive points of blogging - either about your family and children, or about whatever you want - and instead made Heather look like a woman that encourages stalkers to come rape her husband's clogs. And give her daughter enemas.

Afterwards, I was still psyched that I had gotten to see Heather on LIVE TV DEAR SWEET GOD, but was disappointed by the interview. I went on her site, got to read the impressions of other viewers, and finally - today - got to read what the experience was like for her. It's good to know that her followers weren't suffering alone.

Meanwhile, we had tri-color rotini for lunch yesterday. In cream of mushroom soup with chicken, all baked together with that cool cheese stuff that you can get now that's in the Parmesan cheese shaker from Kraft. It was really good, and that much preparation can only mean one thing: I did NOT cook it. You know that's quality. Everyone was enjoying lunch until we noticed that Gabe was eating the white and red pastas just fine - but the green spirals had been left behind on his tray. After they had been there long enough, or if we didn't give him anything else once his supply had dwindled to just green, he began to toss them on the floor. It was his reminder to us that green is evil, and we are horrible parents. For some reason, seeing a one-year-old (okay, thirteen months and a little) make this kind of distinction threw me off. It didn't occur to me that he would be able to tell the difference between the three pastas when there wasn't a change in flavor, and watching him separate them out and only eat what he wanted astounded me.

He's also doing more walking than crawling - how awesome is that?

As for me, I had a dream last night. I was at my mom's house, and while I was in the back room she handed me four pieces of paper - two were typed on special paper from the place she works, and two were handwritten transcriptions of other letters. The typed letters were obviously copy/paste versions of something else, or hand typed by her or someone else. When I read the handwritten versions - in her writing - I realized that they were supposed to be letters from my father, one of which claimed he was in town looking for me and wanted to meet up with me. I asked her when it was from, and she replied that it had come last September. She had failed to pass these letters along to me, although all professed an extreme want to see me and get to know me if I was willing to do the same. There were no return addresses, no phone numbers, no envelopes, all of which indicated to me that the originals had been destroyed. Upon asking, she confirmed it, and I accused that she had "probably burned them or something". Just so I couldn't see them, just so I couldn't get to know my father, because she didn't want me to. As she went around doing things, pretending afterwards like nothing had happened, I was crying and trying to yell at her for having hidden away the letters, but I could never get my voice above a rasping, angry whisper, and thus I was sure she couldn't hear a word I said.

I'm not sure what any of this means, or what it might be indicating, but that's really all there was to it. I know I had other dreams, but this is the only one I remember. I've been having a lot of dreams lately where I've been crying, or sobbing, or screaming (or trying to). Odd.

Mother's Day

2008-05-11T10:32:00.000-07:00

So today is Mother's Day, and I'm sitting alone out in the living room in front of my computer eating reheated home-made cheese taquitos. Or however it's spelled. I'm alone because Col has chosen to lay down with the small screaming angry thing and try to get him to nap again, as he still seems exhausted.

Today started with a wakeup call of whining around 7 AM, though everyone managed to stay in bed until probably quarter 'till 8. At that point, I got up to pee and Col changed a diaper. When I came back to bed, there was a lot of roughhousing with Gabe, and the end result was Col getting up with him and telling me to go back to sleep. Mind you, it was a reluctant process, and although it's Mother's Day, a day I should get to sleep in, I offered to get up with the angry one. Col refused and grudgingly trudged out of the bedroom. So I went back to sleep.

I got up maybe a couple of minutes after noon, the longest I've slept in years. Gabe woke up with me after taking an hour nap, though he was still obviously exhausted, and when Colin came in, I told him such. I was informed in a rather lackluster manner that there was lunch in the microwave for me, and with that, Col laid down and I left the room. He's still out here, and I'm eating reheated whatever-the-hell-these-are.

I feel gipped somehow, since I guess - silly me - I thought that Colin would be willing to give me a day off, as I fully intend to do for him soon (not just on Father's Day, but then too). I know I'm not getting any physical gifts or anything, and I honestly don't expect him to do anything else for me all day, but apparently even asking for this one thing was too much. He's angry and bitter now and only barely managing to contain his frustration. Mind, I do understand that it's possible to have a bad day. But I guess I kind of expected all that dorky stuff they show in those commercials - breakfast in bed, a card (hand-made is great), hugs and kisses, whatever. Oh, wait. He rubbed my feet for me on Friday (and called it my Mother's Day gift after I jokingly asked him if that's what he was giving me).

I think that next year I'm boycotting this day and just telling him to never mind it. It isn't worth it.

A Tough Lifetime

2008-05-05T07:41:00.001-07:00

I was originally going to say that today alone had been tough, but that would be a lie. The last couple of mornings have been, though, with a certain small someone deciding to wake up around 6:30 AM after going to bed far too late. It used to be that we would fight him on this and attempt to force him to go to bed at a more reasonable hour, but after we realized that he would go to sleep whenever he pleased - about the same time we gave up trying to get him to sleep in his crib around month four or five - we gave up the futile effort. It wasn't worth the screaming and crying and hours spent sitting next to him, singing until our throats hurt and our mouths were dry, storytelling and just talking about absolutely nothing - like how the seasons work or why it rains or where milk comes from - until he would give us that look that begged us to stop being stupid and just let him do what he wants. I have to admit, too, that Col was way more patient than I was 90% of the time and tended to do a lot of the sitting and singing. I'm just not a patient person.

But lately things have been descending into this little personal hole of hell that we seem to have created for ourselves. It comes and goes, but lately exists as a grocery-less fridge and cupboards, a past-due car payment, an overdrafted bank account that will soon close, and three other bills (electric, phones, cell phones) that have past their due date unpaid. Never mind that the car insurance bill should have been coming out of the bank account (but since that's empty, it won't happen). Oh, and we owe another $50 in rent.

There's a certain sense of personal responsibility for these problems that I harbor. I try not to discuss it much and do my best to act as though I don't feel bad at all and know that things will improve, given time, and that we all encounter problems occasionally. It's just difficult to ignore all of the problems, and knowing that if I had a job, I could fix these problems ... Well, it doesn't go over well in my head. But the job market right now doesn't allow for the unemployed, doesn't give me any kind of boon for having not been able to find a job. We don't receive any kind of government pity because of the requirements of TANF payments and it's only thanks to the government as it is that we have any kind of health care available for us or Gabe. Today my intentions are to call my DHS caseworker and beg her to let me come in and reapply for the Link card, in hopes that we will find some kind of fallback and at least can get groceries. We gave up the card when we were doing a bit better, not wanting to be the stereotypical moochers; it was so nice, for a time, to be able to provide for ourselves and know that at least when it came to food on the table, we were the ones responsible for it - not the $400 a month we were handed so very kindly by the state. Now, though, I regret that high horse and wish I could have admitted the truth to myself: no matter how well we're doing, we are still lower class and will probably suffer for the rest of time for not being born under the right names or situations.

I can't help but think that it's bruising to the ego to have to go back to depending on the help of others after being self-sufficient for a time. It always hurts to admit that yes, we're doing badly again, and no we aren't proud of it, but there isn't a whole hell of a lot we can do right now. We can complain and do our best to fix our problems, but we always have to keep in mind that they may not be fixable and we may suffer the consequences of being poor.

I used to like to use the excuse of being college kids; everybody understood that, and agreed that it was tough. But now that Col is graduating (with an AS, and you had better bet your ass that I'm proud of him for it) and I have for the time being given up on the prospect of school, it seems that excuse won't be adequate anymore.

I guess, really, that's it. There's nothing else to all of this, just that it depresses me and I know it depresses Col, and I don't know how to fix it.

My Spam Folder Is Taunting Me

2008-05-01T19:21:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's right - my spam folder is taunting me.

I check my email obsessively for no reason and often find a menagerie of messages in my lovely spam box. They range from promises of online degrees in strange fields of study in only a couple of months, to claims of wonder products that will miraculously "enlarge" my "member" in one use, to promises of MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY like one of the messages I just deleted (of course, I'm smart enough to know that the real messages would have said it eight times, not seven).

The problem are these emails that promise financial stability, government grants to repay debts, and new work-at-home jobs that provide thousands of dollars every paycheck.

Granted, I realize these are simple hoaxes created either to make sure your account is real so companies can send you more spam, or phishing emails meant to gather sensitive personal information to steal a person's money or identity. I know this, but it doesn't make me feel any better to delete it when I know all too well the situation we're in financially. What if one of those messages was real, and actually helpful, and would have meant fixing all of our problems without having to worry? What if I've just deleted the answer to all of our issues, getting ahead in our bills, not having to worry about how we would pay the bills? There are so many "what if" scenerios attached to my fears that it isn't funny - and I don't know what to do about it.

Sigh.

Meanwhile, Gabe is walking, our rebate check won't be coming until late June or July, I still don't have a job, bad weather is coming hardcore, Mom's house is falling apart, I need to clean, and .. I'm so depressed. I can only hope things start looking up soon.

Haven't Written

2008-04-30T13:19:00.000-07:00

And I guess I apologize for that. I have to go soon, too, so this will undoubtedly be a rather short post. But still!

Here I am.

The last couple of days have been really rough around here. We're being constantly reminded that we're in the midst of a financial crisis and that we don't have enough money for everything, never mind the fact that it is seeming more and more likely that we won't be able to go to Maine like we were hoping at the end of the month (or thereabouts). This has understandably disheartened Col, who was looking forward to seeing his two remaining grandparents (both of his grandfathers) and showing off Gabe to the more ill of the two. We were really looking forward to seeing his parents again, of course, and both of his sisters and his nephews and niece. Oh, and his best friend. You know, absolutely everyone that has any meaning to him. The fact that this much-anticipated and promised trip might not be happening (in fact, probably won't be happening now) has really gotten him down, and the financial pressure we're feeling from every angle has made things that much more difficult to handle.

Thankfully, spring is making a comeback, so at least the weather is trying to cheer us up.

The last couple of days were disgustingly chilly, both in the daytime and at night. We had a freeze warning at one point, and while I never saw any frost, I don't doubt that it happened. It was so cold that we were forced to shut the windows and turn the heat back on, which can kind of make you grumpy when it's almost May. I guess I shouldn't complain, though; when you live in Tornado Alley you'd almost always rather have cold weather than the other end of the spectrum. But that didn't make us feel any better about the fact that it was FREAKING COLD. I couldn't even wear sandals, God.

Add to it that I've still not yet managed to find a job, and that Gabe has wanted Col and nobody else recently, and that has made for one hell of a grumpy husband. The days have been difficult here as Col has put his asshat back on (ha ha ha) and has, by early afternoon or thereabouts, turned into a total dick. I can't really blame him, and I'm not about to fault him for it, but it makes living in an already difficult situation that much worse. I've been trying my best to ignore my exhaustion and have begged here and there for a day to sleep in, but I intend on trying to give Col more time alone and more time without the baby - and time to sleep - so he maybe feels like things are okay to an extent.

I could go on a rant about irresponsibility, and how he doesn't actually take responsibility for himself or any of his problems, but at this point it would be useless. It won't change him, or the fact that he is still in truth a very immature person.

So now, I have go to - Col has to be to work soon and Gabe needs .. A lot. Sigh.

Morning

2008-04-24T07:06:00.000-07:00

Today started early.

Gabe woke up just after 7 AM and decided that he was done being asleep. Thankfully we coerced him into staying in bed until 7:22, at which point he decided he had had enough and was unable to resist trying to throw himself over both of our limp bodies to an inevitable doom somewhere on the floor below. As such, I conceded and got up with him, though not after a short 'n' sweet guilt session aimed toward Col because at 3:30 AM I rolled over and looked at the clock, then realized that a certain someone still hadn't bothered to come to bed. I can't begin to tell you how much that irritates me, because I swear he does it to piss me off and avoid getting up with Gabe.

So I fed Gabe some oatmeal and a bottle (thank god we're weaning him off of it) and he seemed a little content, though he was understandably ticked that said oatmeal was a little thick this morning. It was an off brand and I guess I didn't add enough milk, but he ate it anyway, nearly a whole package, and choked it down - though not without purposely combing some through his hair first. I had oatmeal too. Wasn't half bad, though I suppose whatever health benefits it had were canceled out by the Mountain Dew I also had. So much for giving up soda.

It is also raining again today. Supposedly there's this whole severe weather risk thing going on, but it's supposed to be cooler and cloudy most of the day, so my assumption is that any bad weather that does dare come will at least not be tornadic, and that's really all I ask. Thus far we've been able to keep the windows open, and the cool last night was enough to turn down the heat in the apartment. Sadly, it's still really humid, but at least it isn't an oven anymore.

So today I have to send Col out to J-Dub to get his graduation papers and hopefully get them filled out and returned before he has to work this evening. I'm not giving him any leeway on this, since they're due tomorrow (to the best of my knowledge) and if he wants to walk next month, they need to be done. No more excuses. One of us needs to graduate from college, even if it's a community college with a two-year associates' degree. And never mind that it took at least four years for either of us to get anything.

So I speed-cleaned last night in preparation for the meeting that happened with only Clara, Bobb, Madelyn, and Madelyn's daughter (who is three months old) in attendance. Clara and Bobb don't get along well at all, and their personalities clash. They're admittedly both very stubborn, set-in-their-ways people, and they ended up facing off several times - though I was proud of Clara for not making the snarky under her breath remarks that Bobb was making. I don't know why he's so convinced that he has to fight to get his point across, though Col pointed out that it's probably an inferiority complex that he doesn't know how to deal with. I hate people like that, though, because he's convinced that everything he says is totally right and the god-given truth, and anyone who doesn't believe him or like his ideas is some sort of idiot and obviously wrong. He has often tried to tell Col and I what to do with ourselves, our home (apartment), and our son - with no regard toward what we think we should be doing with any of the above. It's one of those things that's going to be difficult to deal with, and while I realize that personality clashes are inevitable, I'd rather keep them to a minimum if possible.

In other news, Gabe is walking! He only takes maybe four or five steps at any one time, but he's gaining a lot of confidence while cruising and is less hesitant to take those few steps. He still falls over, though, and I can only assume that's because he still doesn't quite have the balance to continue through, but the fact that he's walking at all is a huge improvement for me.

Birthday

2008-04-23T08:00:00.000-07:00

First, I HAVE A READER! I can't prove that she's sticking around, but it was good to know that someone is listening to my pointless rambling.

Secondly...

Yesterday was my 22nd birthday.

We celebrated it by not doing anything. Mind you, that isn't what I wanted to do, but it's what money allowed. The day was fairly lazy; started with a thunderstorm and ended with the apartment way too hot. I suppose it's what we get for living on the third floor with no windows in the living room and only two windows that happen to be right next to each other in every other room. There's never much of a breeze up here, and when it's actually nice outside it isn't so bad - but in the warmer weather it's horrible. We discussed turning on the air conditioning, but realized it really wasn't worth bothering. That really ticked off Gabe, and we did our best to keep him cool. Today is supposed to be even warmer, and if need be, I'll turn on the air - I just don't want to, knowing how much it will cost.

Later that evening, after the J-dub choir crew finished their concert, they all went out to Village Inn - and thank God that Clara called me to let me know they were going, just like she said she would. By that time, Gabe was already at my mother's house, so all we had to do was hop over that way. We got to see a lot of people - Chaz, J Ray, Clara of course, Esther, and a couple of other people that I know but whose names I have unfortunately forgotten. Met a couple of new people, too, all of whom were incredibly nice and sweet - and one of whom was a DM like Col is, a nice kid named Alex. They talked a little game and I snapped a few pictures, because that kid seriously looks like Daniel Radcliffe and it was hot. Granted, of course, he doesn't look like it in any of my pictures, which was disappointing.

We also found a check in the mail last night from Col's parents. They sent me $50 for my birthday, which was more awesome than I could imagine. It was great of them, it really was, and while Col and I were planning to use it to take me out to dinner to celebrate my birthday late, it turns out we've other more important things to spend it on (like cat food and groceries), so my dinner out will have to wait an undisclosed length of time. On one hand, I'm disappointed - on the other, I'm resigned to the fate that my birthday will remain largely uncelebrated.

On the plus side, I got good sex out of all of it! Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to keep Gabe from spilling his veggie crackers all over the floor. Although with any luck he'll just keep playing with the box...

Exhaustion

2008-04-19T09:17:00.000-07:00

This whole "raising a kid" thing is way more difficult than they'd have you think.

Magazines, books, websites, friends - they all warn you that you're going to be up late and early and all hours in between, that a child will eat you out of house and home and mean millions of dollars over a lifetime invested into clothes, diapers, wipes, soaps, foods, bottles, and all sorts of dorky accessories (like cribs - what a crock). You buy toys that they'd rather have the boxes of, crib sheets they'll poop on, pretty diapers with characters on them that they'll never see, special bottle brushes (like they give a damn), and everything under the sun, only to pitch or give away 90% of it (we don't have the space to save a lot). They warn you that as your child grows they'll tell you "no" in response to every question or demand, that they'll backtalk you and ignore you even when you're trying to stop them from doing something dangerous. They'll throw their food at you and then refuse to eat, they'll make you wonder if they're really getting enough nutrition to keep you going, they'll destroy everything within reach (and some stuff that isn't). They lack the common sense of an adult, so you learn quickly that there are certain things you would never think of as a health hazard that are downright deadly to a baby that doesn't know any better. They'll tease you with attempts at crawling, walking, self-feeding, and talking, but wait until you aren't in the room or aren't paying attention to take those first few vital steps. Or, worse, they'll wait until you aren't around at all and they're with a relative or babysitter to do something crucial you wish you would have seen. They'll make you cry and rip your hair out, make you wish you had never bothered to get up and dressed in the morning, make you wonder why you bothered going to bed only to not sleep. They'll demand your constant unwavering attention without giving you anything in return. They'll convince you that, really, you shouldn't have bothered being born, because it was kind of a waste in the long run, silly you for bothering.

And then they'll smile or giggle or say "Dada" or "Mama" or hug you and suddenly the clouds will part and the sun will shine and life is worth living again.

Don't you hate that?

Oh, Yeah, and The Weather

2008-04-15T16:48:00.000-07:00

Forgot to mention what happened with the weather the other day!

We ended up with a tornado warning that evening and a confirmed tornado passed just north of town. The weather was fairly tame, though, past that, and while we had a torrential downpour, there wasn't much else to speak of.

Now .. To clean the living room. I'm so excited, only not.

Fat, But Not Necessarily Proud Of It

2008-04-15T12:37:00.000-07:00

I am fat.

I don't like beating around the bush and using the PC terms. They're glorified words that mean the same thing twenty times over: large, obese, overweight, bigger, fluffy. I don't care what you call it, because everyone you're talking to knows exactly what you mean. You're talking about someone who is fat, who weighs more than you and your friends do, who happens to be some ten sizes larger than that model on the front of your magazine. We all know what we mean when we use the politically correct terms, so let's stop poking at the subject and get right down to it.

I am fat.

There, you have it: the Truth. And the Truth is that I am well aware that I'm fat, obese, overweight, whatever. I think I'm what the medical community would call "morbidly obese" while they click their tongues and shake their heads disapprovingly. I think that their head-shaking and tongue-clicking would probably be compounded by the fact that I'm only 21 (almost 22!), a mother, and am already suffering the lifelong effects of my weight: my knees click and crack audibly when I go up or down stairs, I sometimes find it difficult to breathe, and I have to spend a lot of money to actually buy clothing that fits me. I can only barely keep up with my one-year-old as it is, and I know that as time goes on this will only get worse. It will be nearly impossible to teach him to watch what he eats and to be wary of certain ingredients and certain numbers on labels when I don't practice what I preach.

I think that the problem, however, isn't so much that I'm fat, but that people seem to have a lot of misconceptions about the fat portion of the population. I'd like to address some of them, and correct those thoughts.

First, there seem to be a lot of people who are convinced that being fat was somehow a choice for us. These individuals paint a picture of a bunch of skinny, pretty, popular kids sitting around. One day, these kids all make the same decision: to be fat! Right, because, obviously, every child wants to grow up to have full joint replacements before age 50. Because we want to have arthritis, diabetes, joint problems, heart disease, and die twenty years before our average peers are slated to. This isn't something that we all sit down and consciously choose to live with one day. There isn't some long inner decision process that ends in the choice of being fat. We're born bigger and struggle with weight all of our lives. We make bad decisions and turn to food and away from exercise in difficult or stressful situations. Sometimes we fully understand what we're doing, and sometimes - more often than not - it honestly doesn't cross our minds that what we do isn't really the best for our minds or bodies. Trust me: if we constantly thought about what we were doing, we probably wouldn't do it.

For some of us, are difficulties are hereditary. Our parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, and uncles are big. They don't eat right, don't exercise, and never encouraged us to do so either. We've learned all of our lives not so much that being fat is all right, but that we are the way we are and we should accept and embrace that - even if who we are means that we're going to die earlier and live lives full of mockery, pain, and physical difficulties. I think we're given the wrong impression by our parents and teachers; it's inappropriate to make us think that it's all right to be overweight. I'm not trying to say that it's a good idea to encourage children to be tiny and that size 0 is the only size to be, but I know I'm not exactly proud to be massively overweight - and I wouldn't expect any of my children to be, either.

Second, we are not all fat because of what we eat or how we live. For some of us, we have always been this way, and yes, there really are various conditions that cause some of us to be overweight. I'm not writing myself off as one of these people, although I have always been big. I'm just saying - I find it disturbing when disbelieving individuals sit around and say that all obese people choose to be that way. Think before you speak.

Third, and probably finally, it isn't just as easy as deciding one day that you're going to change your lifestyle and boom. It's incredibly difficult to change the way you live, to do a total 180 with your habits and schedules just to incorporate the things you should have been doing in the first place. And not losing weight immediately doesn't label a person a failure - it just means that they're at a plateau or that they need to be doing something different. Losing weight is not a race, it's a slow and difficult process (which is part of the reason some refuse to try to diet and exercise, as they know they won't see immediate results). Someone who is fat might be honestly trying to lose weight right that moment, but they won't always show as such.

I suppose that's all there is to my rant. Mayhaps there will be more later.

Meanwhile, Gabe is choking on his food (corn, green beans, potatoes, fish sticks). Poor kid. Doesn't matter how much I cut it up, he's still coughing!

Foiled Again

2008-04-10T08:12:00.000-07:00

Guess what is no longer supposed to be that bad today?

...

Yeah. I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel like an idiot. I should've seen this coming; it almost always happens this way. They say Death Snow and it turns into a sprinkle.

Shell's coming over soon, don't know why. Probably something about the game Colin's trying to start. We have errands to run, though, and only one human in this house has eaten so far and you had sure as hell bet that it isn't Colin or me.

And I have WoW addons to download! ASAP, in fact.

Because I'm a Wuss

2008-04-09T19:51:00.000-07:00

I'm currently in the midst of panicking.

I'd like to think that it's actually rational this time, considering what all of the major networks are saying about the severe weather we're supposed to get tomorrow. I've gone through all the rationalizing techniques I know, while keeping in mind that I am Completely Crazy and thus will not listen to logic right now. I'm obsessively watching maps and staring at the Weather Channel (even though they typically prefer to predict Death Snow than something actually possible), and of course scouring over everything NOAA has to offer, because obviously if I continue obsessively reloading maps of the weather southwest of here right now, I will be made privvy to anything and everything that will be happening tomorrow, without fail, completely accurately.

Yes, I realize it's completely irrational, thank you. But the continual usage of the words "large tornado outbreak" have me more than a little jumpy.

A commercial that was on just now for some kind of combined insurance company has informed me that if an older gentleman who is well-dressed and happens to be carrying a gigantic red umbrella with him stops by to help me in a time of need, I should obviously accept, because he will give me a ride on his huge umbrella and it will be fun.

Anyway. Back to something that makes less sense.

So yeah, I'm going nuts right now. I really don't want to be this bothered, especially since I'm actually starting to feel a little sick to my stomach. I'd even go as far as saying I'm nauseated by this entire ordeal. But it won't stop until Friday comes and I can get up in the morning and know that everything's fine, nothing horrible happened, and everybody's just fine. Which is exactly what will happen, so help me God. Probably doesn't help, of course, that I'm not a religious person and this is the only time of the year that I tend to find Jesus.

Col has to work tomorrow night. Haven't decided yet if I'll be cowering at Mom's house and panicking while she just gives me that insists that I am nuts. Then I'll be informed that I'm overreacting, I mean, honestly, why are you crying? There's nothing to go on about. It's just a thunderstorm. Because belittling my paranoias will totally make me just snap out of it.

May call Sessa and see what she's doing tomorrow afternoon/evening. I might go cower in terror with her, since she at least pretends to be as frightened as I am. Probably only for my sake, but I really do appreciate it. She's the only one that bothers to act like she's terrified, too, so I don't feel quite so irrational about everything.

I'll probably post tomorrow morning about how the predictions have only gotten worse and the forecast is horrible and what will I do?!

Storms

2008-04-09T12:38:00.000-07:00

All that bad weather we were supposed to get?

Yeah, got moved to tomorrow.

Apparently this is a very not-funny situation, since even the SPC/NOAA/weather.gov is freaking out about all this, spewing a bunch of stuff about issuing high-risk warnings for the area tomorrow, but it all depends on morning wind shear or weather or whatever. Not to imply that I don't care, only that there are certain things I still don't understand - and despite being a Spotter (yeah, baby), I don't really understand a lot of the weather.

Naturally, this has me edgy. I don't like bad weather, and I tend to like it even less when it involves times when I won't be around Col. I don't want to have Gabe in this weather, because it makes me feel like something awful could happen. I'm not just worrying for me, anymore - I'm worrying for Gabe because I'll be in charge of him then, and myself, and of course Col while he's at work.

I worry a lot.

Even though I know that none of this will be happening until tomorrow, I'm still in a mini-panic now. I have to, right? Because there is a very real possibility of Something Bad Happening. And if Something Bad does happen, I won't know what to do. I've never been in a life or death situation before, and I'd be just as happy not to start anytime soon. Like, oh, ever.

So here's hoping tomorrow isn't deadly. I'm going to hop over to Mom's after I take Col to work, and probably wash his awesome purple pants that he got from one of his sisters while I'm there. Always good to be useful.

Disconnection

2008-04-08T14:46:00.000-07:00

The cell phones were disconnected today.

Their reasoning was some crap about nonpayment of a bill and late fees. I think they're absolutely insane. So I went and paid them $200 that we didn't have, and it still wasn't enough - so until Tuesday, no cell phones.

Gabe is grouchy again today. He's still dealing with a runny nose and a want to touch absolutely everything, even if I've said no twenty times and take away whatever he's playing with. He would have the world think that he's being tortured and beaten if he had his way, judging from the way he screams in retaliation. I know he doesn't feel well, but this is so irritating. Yet another facet of parenthood that they don't bother to tell you about before you start bringing these evil things into the world.

The weather has been cloudy, cold, and rainy all day. Down south in St. Louis it's nearly 70; here, it hasn't even hit 50 today. The severe weather we were supposed to get today has been pushed farther south and to tomorrow. No skin off my back. I could do without it. Although there were a couple of rumbles of thunder this morning...

So now our checking account is under again, we still owe rent and the car payment, and never mind the phone bill and the cell phones. At least we have enough for groceries, and there isn't anything else we're in dire need of.

Stuck at Mom's again this evening while Col's at work. Her leaky roof (and thus leaky ceiling) must be dealt with by laying out rags on the floor and constantly changing them out. Guess who's stuck doing it.

Hope the weather's better wherever you are.

Allergies

2008-04-07T21:14:00.000-07:00

Spring must be coming. Today my allergies are killing me.

I think I was all right until I went outside. It was over, then: the sneezing, the stuffed nose, the itchy everything - it all started once I went outside. I feel like absolute death, and Zyrtec - our old fall-back allergy medication - is thus far doing absolute shit to help this condition. I know I'm not sick, but that doesn't mean I don't feel that way.

Went to Mom's earlier to let her deal with Gabe. I think he has allergies, too - either that, or he's having a reaction to his vaccinations that he had last Wednesday. Either way, he's "sick" himself, and grouchy because of it. To prove it, he's staying up extra-late for the second day in a row. Last night he didn't give up to sleep until 12:30 AM, and here we are, 11:17 PM, and I'm willing to bet that he's going for another try of staying up as late as he can manage. But we've just given him some Benadryl to dry up his sinuses and maybe help get rid of his itchiness (his eyes are getting a little bloodshot), and hopefully it will knock him out, too.

Supposedly we're in for severe weather tomorrow. I hope not. I don't deal well with thunderstorms on my own, especially not bad ones. More on this as it develops.

I had originally intended on coming on today and saying something interesting or insightful, but thus far I simply don't have the drive to do it. Maybe tomorrow will see a change (yeah, right).

Going Away

2008-04-06T18:42:00.000-07:00

Today the in-laws left.

Col and I are both a bit sad and doing what we can to pretend otherwise. I love it when his parents (E & C) come to see us, because when we're here the world's a little brighter. They're both nearing 60, with three other grandkids back up northeast where they live. The three day drive must be difficult on them, but they manage quite happily to come down and go back once a year, or so - though it's never often enough. They're great people in a lot of ways, though I know that Col had his fill of them while living with them. And I've seen why - I know I haven't seen them at their worst, but I've seen them pretty bad. I've heard his complaints, too.

I think it was hardest on E. She hates the idea that one of her grandkids and both of her sons are down here. I don't blame her, even though I'm not really sure what it feels like. I'm sure Col has an idea, since he's the one who moved here, away from the entire rest of his family, to be with me. But me? Eh, I suppose in that sense I'm quite the inexperienced child.

So now? No more full days. We have no more plans, no more guarantees of having something to do, no matter what it is. No more pool and swimming (which will probably irritate us more than Gabe). No more fun people to actually interact with. God forbid, a social life!

We're going to try to organize more group activities. Hopefully we can go back to being the family that we pretended to be so very well while E & C were here.

Today was absolutely beautiful, too. It was the warmest that it has been this year (70 or thereabouts) and the sky was blue with fluffy white clouds almost all day. Yesterday was our first anniversary, and after leaving Gabe with E & C at Bobb's with the rest of the crew, we went out to a local restaurant that I've never been to before. The food was great and even reasonably priced, the service was awesome, and I wasn't carded for my drink (and to think I haven't been carded yet). We decided to keep it a "special place" that we could go to when we wanted to celebrate something. A pity we won't get to go often, but at least we know it's an option. I look forward to going again.

So today we hooked up with J & M after I went to Mom's and did a little laundry. Now we're all sitting around, eating pizza, dealing with a grouchy baby.

Away From Home

2008-04-04T17:43:00.000-07:00

Tonight I'm posting from my mother's laptop. It's a horrible conglomeration of stupidity, an Acer creation that Never Should Have Been. It's running Vista - I use the word "running" very loosely here - even though it barely meets the minimum requirements to do so. It's slow and unreliable, and I blame that on the fact that this is a Wal-Mart creation.

In the front room, my mother is getting impatient (as usual) with Gabe. He doesn't deserve it - he's tired! - but she's an impatient person. Always has been. She has always been a lot of things, but I don't think I'll get into that right now.

My duty is to "make the printer work". I have been informed that it doesn't work because "the webpage is bad", not because the ink is probably low or the cartridges are faulty (which is what the current printing job looks like). I am wrong, obviously.. Which is funny, because I'm supposed to fix it. I'm thinking about telling her that the Internet is broken.

Yesterday was a day of extreme knee pain. My left knee proved itself mostly dysfunctional around midday, and I couldn't go up or down stairs - or get out of the car - without wincing and having to limp. By the end of the night, bending it too quickly produced the same sensation, along with a disturbing "pop" that wasn't there before. Not to imply that my knees didn't pop before - they have since junior high - but this is a new pop, a more distinct sound. And of course, you know why this is happening as much as I do. It's because I'm overweight. My body can't handle the stress that I'm putting it through and as such is reacting the way nature has made it to: it is breaking down. I'm a weak link in the food chain, and even though I'm only 21, my body is trying to give in.

Naturally, this means that it's time for a change. So wish me luck.

Meanwhile, tomorrow is my first wedding anniversery. No idea yet what we're going to do, past go out to dinner at some point, and maybe meet my in-laws for breakfast in Hannibal. They leave to go back home on Sunday, probably in the evening, and I'm going to miss them - and I'm ashamed to admit that I'm going to miss the hotel too. Not because it's amazing, but because of the pool and hot tub. For someone like me that's a great source of free exercise, and I'm going to be hurting without it. Not that I won't live. I just can't afford to sign up at the Y or anything, so for now, we go without. But this is nothing new.

The bank account was supposed to close today. Thankfully, it didn't. It's still open and the insurance ($180) is paid - now for the phone bill ($20), the car payment ($450ish), rent ($350), and whatever else. Groceries will have to wait. We also still own AT&T some $120 on top of the next bill and I'm worried that they're going to disconnect our cell phones soon. Usually my mother covers all of the cell phone bill, but she has recently been asking us for more money that we don't have to start paying on it ourselves - and she knows that. Never mind that we bought her a new phone and our own new phones when we were able, never mind everything we already pay ... I shouldn't get bitter like this, I know. It won't help anything.

Gabe is so close to walking now that it isn't even funny. His birthday was last Saturday - did I already mention that? He's so big .. So old .. It's hard to think that a year ago this week I was still in the hospital after having him home for no more than 24 hours. We had to go back because he was so severely jaundiced. Not a good time. But the memories have already faded for us, and he certainly doesn't remember. I don't even think he remembers his shots at the beginning of the week..

At his appointment on Wednesday they said that he was 22lbs 12oz and 29.5 inches long. Impressive, no? I honestly think that he lost weight, but he still eats like a pig and he's incredibly active. I shouldn't be surprised. I don't think that I am.

After Col's off work at 9 PM, we get to go swimming again. Yay!

Cold and Grouchy

2008-04-03T09:24:00.000-07:00

Our weather has gone back to nasty - in fact, it has been this way since Col's parents arrived from up north (east?). It's cold, rainy, and dreary - and the worst part of all is that it isn't even really raining, just dripping. Enough so that you can't find a good in-between speed on your wipers. I hate that.

Today my mother had lunch with Col's parents. Apparently it went well, although we're both fairly sure that it was a success only because Col's father was down this time, as well - it's a huge improvement over the baby-grabbing episode that happened just under a year ago this month. The cursing and anger that resulted from that really wasn't worth the effort, but it's over and done with now, thank god, and a year has passed and I'd like to think we're all at least a little wiser. I'm somewhat sure (unfortunately) that Col's mom took it upon herself to gloat about the clothes she bought for Gabe, and that she sort of rubbed it in my mother's face that she was probably taking Gabe tonight, but oh well.

Saturday was Gabe's first birthday. People who said they would show up didn't - but that's what I get for 1) using Facebook to invite people, and 2) assuming that people care. My own fault. But we still had a really good time, even though Bobb kind of creeped mom out. Not my problem! There was cake, a cute baby eating it, and a bunch of toys. I also got to see people that I haven't seen in months, which made it that much better.

What else ... Ah, yes, tonight is laundry. I've been putting it off for some time now, since I have to lug it up and down two flights of stairs, into and then out of the rain and car, and do all of said laundry at mom's house. It really bites to live in the attic apartment sometimes, with no hookups and no laundry facilities. But our landlord doesn't seem too concerned about whether or not we're happy here, as long as he gets paid.

Speaking of payments, we're way behind in everything. Well over $1000 in the hole. I was hoping Col's father would win the lottery like he keeps talking about, but he hasn't yet (that I know of). But some lucky soul did.

Off to collect garments and drag them down wet stairs. I hope I don't have to make two trips; my left knee is killing me today. Can't say I'm looking forward to stairs at all. Hopefully tonight we'll swim at the hotel his parents are staying at, after he gets off work. I could use the hot tub. But that won't be until 10 PM or so, and it's only 6:30 now ...

An Improvement

2008-03-24T13:12:00.000-07:00

Doing better now! Thank God, too, 'cause that was about to drive me nuts. Col cooked lunch, it was a flop, I attempted to inspire myself to lose weight (also a flop) and now I have a poopy baby diaper to change. How I love this world.

First and Foremost

2008-03-24T10:18:00.000-07:00

I hate days like this.

Hate, hate, hate.

I think when I first woke up a little after 6 AM that I knew it was going to be an off day, if not one of "those" days when all I can think about is loss and death. Never mind that it's beautifully sunny outside (and would probably be perfect if the temperature could dare to climb over 40F), never mind that nothing's really wrong (although I could use to clean up the living room again and finish up the bedroom, maybe), never mind that everything is as it should be.

At some point today, my mind said, "Hey! I'm gonna fuck you up, okay? Hold still a second." And that was just the end of it.

Days like this are spent mourning a situation that hasn't been (and hopefully won't be) and crying over children I've never known. It's spent looking at blogs and websites of parents who have lost their babies and sobbing for them, imagining myself in the same situation even though it only makes me cry more. It's a tendency that I get sometimes, one I can't explain and probably don't want to have explained, now that I'm thinking about it. It doesn't matter that Col's still here, or that Gabe is perfect and very much alive. I mourn for these other mothers and for the beautiful children that they've lost. Why? I couldn't answer that question, except to say that it's either an eventual requirement of motherhood, or that I'm just that insane and this is "one of those things" that's the result of an acute mental condition that I refuse to have diagnosed. I'm already depressed, already overweight, already have low self-esteem - let's not throw another log onto the fire, mmkay?

So I woke up a little after 6 AM, feeling ill. Col had felt like that earlier in the evening but had managed to come to bed despite it, a couple hours after I did (I think). I went to the bathroom but still felt unsure of my stomach so I stayed up about an hour after that, then came back to bed. Naturally, my returning to bed began the waking up process for Gabe, who at around 8 (or thereabouts) decided that he was done pretending to sleep and it was time for all of us to get up right now. Only, I didn't want to. I asked Col to get up with him, and maybe an hour and a half later (around 10:30?) and after some Wheat Thins and a bottle for breakfast, Gabe came back to bed. With Col. And naturally, you can guess which one of them had no interest in sleeping.

He eventually passed out, though, but I couldn't bring myself to stay in bed much longer. I got up. Came to the computer. Got online. Checked a blog, ended up clicking around, found myself in my current depressive state. I left and got a shower, then came back - and damn that MSN for having on its front page a story entitled, "When A Baby Is Destined To Die". Thank you so much for adding fuel to my emotional fire! Naturally, I read it. I cried. Big surprise.

Thank God those posts only last a day, sometimes not even that.

I hope I can get out of this rut. Mom just called and let me know that she had acute sinusitus (?!?!) and bronchitis, so apparently I get to go procure Kleenexes for her. Probably after Col goes to work at 4-ish. Maybe earlier.

Baaaah. Must .. Escape .. This.