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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** This is my family updates blog. I'm sorry to say that it's moved to Facebook. If you would like to continue to read about my life, you need to be my Facebook friend.  |
 Random question of the day: Is there any cure for kleenix nose? Ya know, the flaky red nose you get after your cold goes away. Mine was so grotesque today. Yucko!Jack laughed today. I mean a real laugh! It was awesome. There's been some times when he almost laughed. A sort of heh-heh like he was exhaling hard or something. But this time it was a real baby guffaw. He and his daddy were playing on the couch and being silly and he was really getting into it. Awww...it was cute!  He has been very talkative too. When he wants his bottle you can tell he is trying to tell us what he wants, and as time goes on you can here his voice get more and more concerned. Wait too long, and he starts crying, but we've gotten really good about it. It's amazing how much he can tell us just with his tone of voice. We Tivo'd this TV show "Vanished" from last night and watched tonight. Quite exciting! I wasn't sure if there was a good future for the crime drama, but they managed to pique some of my intrerest...although Hollywood still cuts some corners when it comes to criminal justice realism. But hey...oh well...I got to get off my high horse and take in a bit of brain candy every now and then. |
| The Poop Has Hit the Diaper! So this weekend I mentioned the new hip thrusting baby maneuvers Jack has been throwing on us. It turns out that the reason he suddenly might not be so keen on sitting still is...he's constipated. Or he was. And let me tell you...that was the nastiest diaper I have cleaned up yet. I'm sure these are the things I want to remember. Why was Jack constipated for three days? Not sure but my hunch lies in the nipples. Being that he will be 3 mos this week, we thought we should try the 3+ mos nipples (aka LEVEL TWOs). It turns out Jack doesn't want LEVEL TWOs. As soon as we went back to his old slow-flow nipples, he pooped and he has been less fussy over all. Hey, the boy likes to take his time eating. Nothing wrong with that. My great-grandmother took an hour to eat her dinner. Now that the problem has been solved, does that mean Jack is giving up his new-found middle-swiveling dance grooves? OH HECK NO! He thinks this is the neatest trick, and especially likes to slide around on the changing table. Yea! Oh the mobility! |
What does my blog look like? Well, it's got some teeth. It snaps quite a bit, probably because I don't feed it enough. I don't like to look it directly in the eyes, but it's like the sun - every now and then you have to just stare. And ouch! He makes the scrunchie face.  Look at him glaring at me. I try to soothe my blog with sugar cookies, but he squaks. (He squaks, he doesn't roar.) I try to spend time with my blog, but he is needy and doesn't understand the many pressures I am under.My blog kind of looks like a moonkin: ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Moonkin aren't always mean...just when you get them riled. Or when they are drinking from a poisoned water source. Cuz that can happen too. I went to the doctor today and the meds are working great! I'm going to be 100% tomorrow I think.  |
*cough* *cough*  So my boss has been sneezing and coughing on me for three weeks because she didn't want to see a doctor. Damn workaholic! Of course, now I have what she had. I didn't wake up with this. I was fine, and then at 1500 Saturday afternoon, I sneezed. It went downhill from there. Three hours later and I'm totally zombie (in a bad way). Dammit! Caring for Jack is no fun when you're sick...not to mention I'm afraid to touch him because then he might get sick. Jack's been a little grouchy also. And drooling everywhere. I'm thinking he might be teething. A little early but ya never know. He's starting to roll a lot more now. He can roll onto his sides. He has a new trick just this weekend called the pelvic thrust that was straining the restraints on his bouncy chair. And he has decided that he doesn't want to sit in the bathtub. He likes laying out in the water. So he does a couple pelvic thrusts in his "wet seat" and whoosh into the water he goes. He loves this, but it scares the hell out of me. |
| update your blog! update your blog! update your blog! Man, those e-mail prompts are pushy. Hehehe... I have noticed from reading other people on here that there are those who write short little entries (like me) and those that write long ones. I have also noticed that people actually try to come up with interesting things to say. That's incredible! I never thought about it like that. I mean, this is pretty much your run-of-the-mill journal. If I have anything interesting to say, I suppose I save it for my stories...when I get a chance to write any. *sigh* (So many ideas but no chance to sit down and write) The best boggers remind me of David Sedaris who turns events in his life into witty essays. My husband is very good at doing this except he combines it with pictures. This is Chris's LiveJournal: http://fritzalkittykat.livejournal.com/ If you read that, you'll have a better understanding of how weird we are. If nothing else we hope Jack is an independent thinker. Independent thinking is pretty much our religion. When asked what I will teach Jack about God, I pretty much say, combine all the best stuff out there and let him pick and choose...then I'll finish by saying "God is an awesome God!" I have a pencil that says that.  |
I have been crazy busy this week! It just keep coming. Please, please, please...tomorrow needs to be slow. I need to catch up. I haven't answered any email. I have barely had time to go running in the mornings. I hope things calm down, so I can put my feet up for like five minutes.  Ugh...so tired...need to sleep. |
| Jack went to day care for the first time today. Ms Dixie said he did really well, except for when he peed on her. She didn't like that. Hehehe... I'm happy everything when well. Yesterday, I had this really awesome run! I was working on my form. I used to do a slow shuffle run in college because I didn't know how to run well. But Pensacola training taught me the basics - lengthening my stride, heel to toe, using my arm pumping to pull myself forward. It does wonders for my speed. I feel confident enough to start timing myself. I also am down to 151 lbs, which means I have lost close to 20 pounds in the last month. When I get to 150 I'm going to get myself a present - 24K gold stud earrings. They're the kind I can wear with my uniform. I used to have 14K gold studs, but I lost one of them and the other one has since disappeared. Maybe one of the cats ate them. I've been really frustrated at work lately. I have so much stuff to do, and my friend who sits next to me and who outranks me likes to spend a lot of time talking. And she is very candid. I mean, when her daughter was constipated I got all the nasty details about giving a five year old enemas. I think it's great she is so cool, but sometimes I want to clear off my to-do list instead of it just getting longer. We haven't really been working together since Christmas because she was deployed and I was on maternity leave, and I guess I had gotten a productive groove down. Now it's a little messed up. Hehehe...oh well... Hey, she's the senior ranking person. I'll let her worry about it. |
| Invalid Photo #1004560 Invalid Photo #1004561 Invalid Photo #1004562 Invalid Photo #1004563 Invalid Photo #1004564 These are pictures we took today. We went over to Drew's house and played a little bit of DOA4. I actually won a couple bouts, which is awesome. I don't give myself enough credit for button mashing. We put Jack in his little swimmer diaper and let him kick a bit in the pool. After he got used to the bright sunshine and the cool water, he really started getting into it. I think he's a natural. After we did a bit of grilling and watched some funnies on YouTube.com we went home. I have been watching a lot of Battlestar Galactica thanks to Netflix. I'm on to the second season now. I also started the first season of Six Feet Under which I'm not too sure about. I guess it's alright if you like that dark subtle kind of comedy. |
| Today they added another layer of security due to the British bombing plot. I already go through several checkpoints, a couple barbed wire fences, various locks and badge readers...my desk has a lock...there's a locked door between my office and the bathroom. So...I'm not sure the extra guys with machine guns really made much of a different but you never know. They did have bomb dogs. My VW Pigmobile must have sniffed alright. AT LEAST...they didn't make me taste the breast milk I pumped at work. That would have been a bit excessive! So let's talk about Ron. Ron's your usual SLOTH (short lazy ornery tired hireling) I mean short as in ready to retire not short in stature...and yes, I was stretching for an "h" word. SLOTHs are by no means rare at the Agency. Ron has been working there since before I was born. He can't be troubled to do anything that is other than what he has been doing his whole life. Now you know Ron and maybe you can guess where I'm going next... Before I went on maternity leave, I had to put together an equipment test. It required no less than eight offices to coordinate. I did all the paperwork and I asked Ron to keep track of it for me while I was gone. Meaning he would have to call all these people (all numbers and names I provided him). Why...you might ask...would I do this if I knew Ron's track record? Well, because my boss told me to because she was too busy to deal with it herself. So what happens today? I get an email saying the test failed miserably (of course!) and I need to do everything over again! ARGH!!! Dammit!! At least time I will be here to babysit everyone through the whole process. Damn red tape everywhere! I'm trapped in it! Ok, so I was already a little pissed about that and then my boss tells me I might not be going on this trip planned. This trip is designed to introduce me to an office I am supposed to liason with. In fact, my primary job, my sole purpose, is to be the liason between my office and these other folks. And I might not be going because then too many people would be gone from the office. This is like a two-day business trip. It's not like I would be gone for - oh say TWO MONTHS...like I just was. And besides, Ron's staying behind. Obviously, my boss can trust him to do everything, right?  But it's Friday...so I'm not going to think about that for two days! I'm just going to enjoy my baby time and give my husband extra kisses. It's awesome hear Jack getting more vocal. He'll pretend to have a whole conversation with me when I get home from work. He loves to stick his tongue out. It's his form of greeting really. He sees you and gets excited and sticks his tongue out. Hehehe...it's pretty cute! He's discovering his hands too. He loves to take his binky out and just shove his whole hand in his mouth or a few fingers. The only problem is he usually wants his binky back after a few minutes, and he doesn't know how to do that part himself yet. |
Now, I might be a little strange. For instance, I have an octopus fettish that gets a little bit out of hand sometimes. I actually have an octopus tattoo.  ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** The guy who did the tattoo sketched this from my octopus pendant. I brought in the necklace and he said "give me an hour" and when I got back he was all ready. It hurt like hell, but I really like it. It's an octopus, how could I not? It's not something cliche like butterflies or dolphins. Chris was showing me YouTube octopus flicks and they were AWESOME! There was an octopus that brought this shark down. Yum! And a slow-mo of an octopus changing colors. TOTALLY ZOMBIE, man! Totally zombie is #1 awesome super good stuff! It's so great it's zombie! Yeah! Work was not great today. It was BORING! It wasn't that I didn't have things to do. It was that the stuff I had to do was unmotivating. I took a 2 hr lunch. I felt like I was playing hookie, but I didn't care. Blah blah blah...ooh, a Counting Crows cd. I'll buy it. I had lunch with teh Todd. He said I should apply to the FBI, but I'm kind of mad they didn't call me back to answer my application questions. Plus the whole job doesn't sound very family friendly. And I wouldn't be garunteed a job in Seattle which is where we want to move. But him saying that reminds me I need to work on my resume. G'dang! It's real now. We turned in our resignation papers, so as long as everything is signed off on, we will be leaving the Navy next year...for reals yo! |
I was over at "Invalid Item"  by A Guest Visitor , and she had an entry about one of her favorite books. I think it's interesting to see what people's favorite books are because I think it sort of says something about who they are and what they like.Right now I'm reading 1984 which is Chris's favorite book...or at least one of his favorites. It's interesting because I think a lot of people think my job is like Big Brother watching. Hehehe...it isn't...it's more like Big Brother watching other countries. My favorite book is Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Why? Well, I'm not sure exactly. I love books on Africa. This one is like the first to really talk about colonization. I love the symbolism and imagery. And it's nice and short so I have read it a lot. I get excited about references to Heart of Darkness in movies. Perhaps that's why I'm the only one who likes the movie The Beach.  No really...!! A long time ago my favorite book was Pride and Prejudice, but I think I have just read it so many times and seen the movies so many times that's it has actually gotten old. I still get excited at the end when Eliza and Mr. Darcy get together, but after Bridget Jones Diary I felt like it had all gotten out of hand. I mean, Bridget is not really much like Eliza. I'm just saying... I don't know if it's motherhood or what but I have been in a great mood for the past month or so. |
One of our hermit crabs died this weekend. It was kinda sad. I mean, you get these things saying to yourself, "It's okay, it's just a crab," and then one of them dies on you and suddenly you realize you were kind of attached to them.  It lasted a year and a half which seems pretty good for a pet crab.Speaking of pets, my big orange tabby cat jumped on the baby today. The baby was sitting in my husband's lap, and not realizing that the lap was taken, Syler just climbed right in. Jack wasn't too happy...nor was Syler really. It was very dramatic. The first time for a cat-baby incident. I'm actually surprised that nothing like this has happened sooner. Jack was perfectly fine like 10 seconds later. Hehehe...go figure! I'm getting used to work again. Getting there early is awesome because the morning always goes by quickly, and there's not too much of the afternoon. About 1330 I am always thinking, "Man, I have to fill up an entire afternoon." But in reality, I only have an hour left to go. It's nice. Pumping breast milk at work helps time go by quickly also. I can imagine it's similar to a smoke break. It takes at least 20 mins to pump and clean up and get back to my desk, so it is a nice excuse to take a break. It's crazy though because the Nursing Mother's Room is actually in the basement of a whole nuther bldg so it takes a couple mins to actually get there. At first it was annoying, but now I use it as an excuse to do a whole bunch of other errands that require me to run all over the complex. Oh, and I ran 3 miles on Saturday. It was awesome!! Of course, I felt a bit of a tickle in my shins afterwards, so I took an extra day off to rest my legs. I've had shin splints - not so fun! |
| Dear cowboy, sweat oozing from your wrinkled brow, straining against the bull you lassoed, thinking it a cow. He sees red and drags you through the dirt, bucking, snorting, giving you a dusting of desert. Still you struggle, draining your strength. Your limbs protest – oh the violence! – but you believe the bull should be free. You tug tighter, holding on until you find the way to let go without anyone getting gored. Written for: "A Good Use of Words" |
| Jack's loving life with Daddy right now. At least he's all smiley when I get home. I think he's happy to see me, which is so sweet. Has anyone ever heard of this? Jack has a propensity to turn his head to the right (if you notice in the above picture), and therefore his head could be asymmetrical and his neck muscles not developing right. So we're supposed to do some physical therapy and try to get him to turn to his left as much as possible. He can do it, he just doesn't like to. Seems kind of weird to me. Hadn't heard of this one before. |
| Everyone has figured out that I'm back at work, so today was really busy with people calling me and asking for help on projects that were lying dormant while I was gone. If you ever want to feel needed, leave for two months and see what happens when you get back. It's flattering, but makes for a busy day. And seriously, why couldn't someone else try to do it while I was gone? I guess a lot of people were too lazy to really take the time to figure out how to do something. Not me, man, I love learning new things. But hey, that's the government for you. They don't want to fire anyone, so instead they hire someone new who does the job the other guy should have done in the first place. Or my favorite, when some manager wants to solve a problem and hires a team to figure out how to do that, but by the time they have a solution that manager has been replaced by someone else who doesn't care about the original problem. Awesome! If the Agency was a business it would be bankrupt. As it is, there's no one to compete against, and therefore, no incentive to make things more effecient. These are your tax dollars folks! All I got to say is "no wonder!" No wonder 9/11. No wonder Iraq. No wonder to everything. Hehehe...sorry about that. Didn't mean to be all bummer. I actually had an awesome day. I got an award for being #1 Awesome Super Good!!! So even though they saved all that work for me, they also saved the kudos. Aw shucks guys! |
| My first day back to work. I had 1115 emails - no kidding! Most of them were from daily updates from various offices and what we call "agency-alls." That's where the whole Agency gets an email. Can you believe I check that much email? I can't. I mean, it's kind of depressing. It makes me wish I was doing something with my hands like reupholstering furniture or killing zombies. So the Building was still there and they didn't delete my computer account. How nice of them! And everything appeared to be running smoothly. And I didn't have tons of taskers when I walked in the door. So yea! I'm sure that will change, though. My calendar is already starting to fill up. But get this - MIKE is gone. MIKE was my arch-nemesis! The man who sent me the nastiest emails. The man who hung up on me whenever I called and told him he needed to clear the use of any of our equipment through me or we were kicking him off once and for all. The man who pretty much told me I was ineffectual, dumb, and useless. He left last week, so I got back not a moment too soon. However, not sure what I'm going to do without an arch-nemesis. What is a superhero without the supervillain? |
| There is a TV show on Bravo called "30 Days." It's pretty awesome! It's done by the same guy who did "Supersize Me," which Chris and I both saw and liked. The first episode of the new season of "30 Days" was about a Mexican border Minuteman who stays with a family of illegal immigrants in L.A. for a month. And of course, he was like you guys need to get out of my country, but by the end he was crying when he left them. It was soooo touching. I cried. TV does NOT usually make me cry, but this show did. I mean, towards the end of the month he even goes to Mexico for them with a camera to record their relatives messages to them. Awww... They hadn't seen their relatives in years because if they left the country they wouldn't be able to get back in. Oh, and when the guy was in Mexico he saw the house they used to live in before they snuck into the US, and it was like a one-room hovel with no roof and no bathroom or running water or anything. sigh...*tear* I like how the show challenges you to change your thinking. There's a couple 30 days that I think would be very hard for me. For example... 30 days living with a pro-life religious fundamentalist family. I probably wouldn't survive that one. 30 days without electricity. No blogging...think about it...yikes! 30 days blind...or deaf. 30 days living on the street. I'm talking about living on park benches, begging for money sort of thing. 30 days in a nunnery with a vow of silence. Hehehe... That's all I can think of right now. |
| I don't remember fondly times spent in the kitchen as a child. We ate out a lot. My mom once told me that she didn't really enjoy cooking all that much. I'm not sure why. Once my brother and I moved out my parents ate out most of the time, usually at my dad's favorite restaurants. Due to his cancer he wanted to eat whatever he wanted. Now that he's gone it seems like my mom eats out often with her friends or just throws together a salad for herself. I'm not like that. I love cooking! I think a home-cooked meal is fantastic and cheaper. I cook just about all the time. I would say it has become one of my favorite pasttimes, and I spend a lot of time trying to decide what I want to cook next. I eat light all day so I can really splurge during supper time and eat whatever concoction I've decided to try next. Good stuff! Recently, I've started keeping track of the meals we eat. "Invalid Item" It's really helped me keep my recipes in order.My favorite is Saturday because I've started doing two meals - a big brunch and a big dinner. Mmmm... And plus, now with Jack it has become more convenient than ever to stay in and cook instead of eating out. Oh, I can't wait til we get our house. Chris and I want to turn the front lawn into a full-out garden. I'd love to live partially off the land. It seems like such a waste of land to just have grass there...unless of course, you keep cows there. But no one does that. Chris wants to work on growing fruit trees where as I'm more of a tomato and squash person. One day we want a working farm like Chris used to have when he was growing up, but that will be a while probably because it takes a few acres I would say.I guess we will have to find a neighborhood that doesn't have a crazy strict homeowners association or something. |
Mental note about my jogging progress: Ran 2 miles today for the first time since Jack was born. It was hard but felt good. I am not confident enough to time myself yet. I ran from Guilford to Vollmerhosen then back to bridges - about 2 miles at 80% pace. I then half-walked, half-jogged (40% pace) back to trailhead. Minimal pain in my ankle. |
| I'm not sure what generation I belong to. I think it's between Generation X and Generation Y. I think Chris and I might be Generation X v.2.0 or something. And I'm not sure what kind of generation that makes Jack. But I'll tell you one thing - this kid has tons of video games. Just because he's our kid and we own every system on the market, and although we don't have all the games out there, we definitely have all the good ones. Now I see this as a good thing because obviously we play a lot of video games, and there's nothing wrong with us. We still function in society and go out and play and have friends and are normal. I do have relatives, though, who would see this as a bad thing. Only so many hours of video games and tons and tons of books, they would say. I'm not knocking books. We read plenty and we read to Jack and obviously I'm hear writing so I'm literate. But books aren't interactive. I'd love to make interactive books. Maybe that's my calling as a writer - not to be in print but to be played. I know just last week I said we weren't going to play World of Warcraft until the expansion came out, but we went ahead and renewed our accounts anyway. We are so weak! Hehehe... It's funny because I've been playing so much Oblivion on the Xbox 360 that WoW now looks cartoonish compared to those graphics. So if all that gamer talk wasn't enough to make you think we have wired ourselves for good, we also got a TiVo. I love it! This means that I can still go to bed early and not have to worry about missing my favorite shows. Not that I worry about that a lot. Okay, maybe just a little bit. But that's only because I'm entrenched in the middle class, and I have nothing better to worry about than a housing bubble. BTW, when they start calling things a bubble, it's just not good. |
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But I am happy about those Cardinals! The same Cardinals that I'd written off as possibly the worst playoff contestant in history just three weeks ago. Now look at 'em! I'll be pulling for them in the Big Game!
Stupid Ravens.