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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.  |
| So I'm still reading The Omnivore's Dilemma. The book is organized into three parts. I have mentioned the first part already. It is about the industrial food complex and what is in the supermarket - a little depressing. The second part is about organic food and the grass farmer. Grass farming is a method of raising animals on pasture instead of on corn (which as the author mentions many times is an unnatural diet, especially for cows). These are more in tune with the recent food localism movements. Again, I find myself a bit depressed about the prospect of joining this movement. I would have to get used to seasonality. Right now I base our whole menu on variety. Chicken, beef, beans, fish, pork...so the week is balanced for protein. This is often combined with further variety - Italian, Mexican, Cajun, Asian. Each day it's something different. This is totally the opposite of seasonality - eating things when they are in season. I am so used to having whatever I want at any time of the year that I don't even know what food goes with what season. LOL Apparently, chicken is supposed to be eaten in the summer, beef and pork in the winter, turkey in the fall. (Well, that last one I might have been able to guess on.) Not to mention fruits and vegetables. Apples are harvested in the fall...I know that much...but not much else. Pretty sad, huh? Another added complication to seasonality... Since most fruits and vegetables are harvested in the Summer and Fall (I think), you have to learn how to preserve them if you want to eat them year-round. Yeah...so I know less than nothing about that. I have never jammed or pickled a damn thing in my life. That feels a little scary if you think about it. If our industrial food complex were to ever shut down there would be a snakerack of people who had no idea what they were doing as far as growing and preserving their own food. Mass starvation! I say this because I tend to believe in an Apocalypse, not a Rapture. If the Apocalypse does come, we're going to be still mucking around down here on Earth. I probably will be in any case. There I will be trying to figure out which part of the plant goes in the ground and how to pollinate them without honeybees (they're disappearing ya know). The third part of the Dilemma is about Hunting and Gathering. The author is quick to point out that this is no longer a viable option for sustaining ourselves. There's not enough wild game out there to support all of us. However, in the interest of being completely thorough, the author decides to try his hand at hunting and gathering as well. I'm curious to see how this goes because like me the author was raised without the knowledge of how to hunt or gather. Going back to the Apocalypse, I imagine this would be mighty nice knowledge to have. What mushrooms to eat, how to take down a wild animal, how to skin and process that animal once you have killed it. If it comes to that, I'll let Chris do the last part. LOL Ya know, come to think about it I haven't even gone fishing before. Man, I would so totally lose on Survivor. Anyway...I toured a daycare center just down the street from me. They have an opening for Lincoln, and it was very nice. I was really impressed with their setup. It seemed to be clearner and more organized than the Army daycare Jack goes to. I got to meet the caregiver that Lincoln would have. She was this little Russian grandmother who has been watching kids for decades. She sings to the kids in Russian because she used to be a music teacher "in the old country." How could you not want your kid to have their very own Babushka? So we're totally going to pay the deposit to reserve the spot. The downside is it costs twice as much as what we're paying for the government daycare. Ouch!! It will amount to 40% of my paycheck. If we moved Jack over to this new place it would go up to 51%. I don't think we'll do that. Hell, with that kind of money we could probably hire a full-time nanny. More likely we'll wait until a spot opens up at Jack's center and move Lincoln over there. That would be 24% of my pay...much better. The director at this new center was very understanding. She told me that she had three infants that were at her center temporarily until spots opened up in the daycare on the Army base. |
| Link has his two-week well-baby visit today. He weighed a whopping 10lbs 4oz, which puts him in the 95% percentile for weight. He was 22.5 inches long too, so he was 95% percentile for height too. "Well, he's definitely a big boy," said the doctor. Really not much else to report. Everything is doing really good. The worst of it is a bit of baby acne. Link is still sleeping off the injustices of being poked and prodded. His sleeping schedule has gotten much better. He is still a little fussy between 7 and 10pm, but nothing too bad. Just a cluster feeding time and then he's down for the night (except for one 1am feeding). He definitely has a Mama preference. Chris seems to make him mad...probably because he doesn't have boobs. And most of his interaction with Dada comes after work when he tends to be the fussiest. Chris isn't too bothered. He'll get to help out more when we start trying bottles out. Speaking of fussy...Jack has been really moody for the last week it seems. He has gotten demanding about what he wants and then he screams when he doesn't get it. It's hard to tell if this is a toddler phase or if it's exacerbated by something wrong. No fever and no teething...maybe a little upset tummy but can't think of anything else that might be a problem. I'm resolved to think that perhaps the changes of having a newborn around at home might be stressing him out. If that is the case he hasn't taken it out on Lincoln at all, thank goodness. Things aren't going to settle down any time soon since we're moving into a new house, but I'm hoping that moving will actually be entertaining for him since he'll have more room to play and plenty of boxes. Who doesn't like a good box? I was excited to talk to my cousin Megan a couple days ago. She sounded like her normal self, which means the newborn stress hasn't completely wiped her out. We got to compare infants and delivery stories. Her delivery sounded exactly like mine really except afterwards her hospital gave her a double bed to share with her hubby whereas mine made me sleep in a rubbish hospital bed with Chris on the couch. Meh! It sounds like baby Isaac is having the same problems with breastfeeding that Jack had - not latching, not sucking, that sort of thing. At least not without the nipple shield. I hated that damn nipple shield thing myself. I can't tell you how glad I am that Link is a good eater!!! I don't think I have the stamina to pump all of the milk again this time around. I tried to be encouraging, but since I never successfully got Jack to take the breast, it probably didn't come out as such.Still trying to find a place for Lincoln at a daycare center. I've called around all over and have his name on a couple different waiting lists. Argh! So frustrating! I'm trying to stay positive, but it's not looking too good so far. Tomorrow I tour a place who has only one other person on the wait list, so maybe it will work for us. Maybe they won't have my clearance stuff figured out when I'm ready to go back, in which case I might just ask to telecommute. I mean, I wouldn't really be doing anything if the clearance isn't worked out. And hell, I can do nothing at home. LOL But things seem to be moving along pretty good in the clearance department, since I have my lifestyle polygraph test on Tuesday. I'm rather eager to find out what kind of questions they ask. Everyone says they ask you all sorts of weird things...like if you have sex with animals or whatever. I can't imagine lying about the fact that I don't do these sort of things, so I hope I pass with flying colors. Uh oh, Link's waking up. Better get the Panda Cub.  That's our nickname for him. |
| http://www.myspace.com/bensbrothermusic I'm trying to figure out how I can possibly get this band's music. The last Brit import that I was into was James Blunt, and I was able to get his album months before it's US release because a friend of a friend actually went to England and happened to pick it up. I'm afraid I haven't quite figured out how to do that again. I discovered these guys in a search to see if I could find the catchy tune in the Dentyne Ice commercial. I'm not used to finding my music in commercials, but the song "Stuttering" turns out to be pretty irresistible. Too bad the full version isn't available anywhere...not even for listening to on their MySpace page. According to certain forums, though, the band plays it live...in Britain. *sigh* Why can I not go to the UK? LOL Another link... http://www.literarymama.com Absolutely wonderful reads here! I read it front to back...if that's possible for an ezine. Then I submitted some of my own poems, just for the heck of it.I have been really frustrated with the daycare registration for Lincoln. I had him on a waiting list already with the specific center that Jack is at. But I guess the central registration folks (who handle the paperwork for the group of centers) are changing their policy so that I need to be on their list also. I swear I have called these people five times and gotten different answers about whether it will be possible to get him in a slot in time for me to go back to work. ARGH! I even made an appointment and went yesterday to clear it all up, but after an hour it didn't seem like I got any further. The lady took Lincoln's name and confirmed he was on the list, but she couldn't tell me where we fell on the list because she was trying to help me and some other guy at the same time. It's disappointing because I felt like I had an agreement with the center itself before these registration fools came into the picture. Rubbish noobs! I haven't been feeling well today...like I'm coming down with something. It's hard to put my finger on it because I don't have any symptoms other than a headache and swollen glands. It seems like I get plenty of sleep, but it's broken sleep so perhaps that's part of the problem. Oh well...not much to do except take naps when Lincoln does. At least I don't have to worry about doing anything productive at the moment.  |
Maybe it's all the diapers I have been changing but I couldn't resist writing this for the Writer's Cramp:
If anything it makes myself laugh. I have been in this situation, but unlike the heroine in my story my purse is always a mess with old receipts that have come in handy in a pinch.  I have a lot of other stories in my head, but haven't written down a lot of them because I'm chasing babies. We're moving in three weeks too! AH! I'm a little nervous about packing everything up, but honestly we don't have too much stuff to move. I keep telling myself that we really don't have to rush. Since the house is only five minutes away, it won't be too terribly hard to come and go between the two places for a couple days. Still it feels like a daunting task. My cousin Megan had her baby boy last night. Babies, babies, everywhere. I like the idea of him being so close in age to Lincoln, even though they live in Kansas and chances of me going out there to visit are pretty slim. Oh well... I've been reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, which is an indictment pretty much of our industrial food system. It's a little depressing when you think of the poor farm policies our government has created and what it is doing to our health. It's scary how many chemicals and artificially created crap that goes into our foods. I am really picky about eating fresh veggies and fruits and cooking meals that aren't from boxes. But that doesn't mean I don't eat my fair share of crap in cereals and snacks. Not to mention the fact that the meat I cook comes from animals bred to gorge themselves on unnatural diets. This is all stuff I either knew or suspected, but when it's presented in a concise fashion and all the facts are in front of you, it's a bit more powerful. The upsetting part is that I don't feel that I have the time to grow my own food or even shop around for local farms that are "organic." Talk about a dilemma. It's almost like being resigned to be slowly poisoned for the rest of your life.  Anyway...not much else is new. Chris went to Game Stop last night to pick up his preordered edition of Halo 3. Jack didn't have an ear infection after all, just a monstrous headcold, which now seems to be on the way out anyway. Lincoln's sleep schedule continues to baffle me. I'm beginning to think infants are on like a 16-hour day instead of a 24-hour day...or maybe it's longer...like a 48-hour sleep-eat cycle. I haven't been keeping track well enough to really figure it out completely, but last night he stayed alert and awake until 11pm and then slept 5 hrs and another 3 after a feeding. The night before he front-loaded his sleep - sleeping pretty continuously from 8pm-4am. He generally gets about 8 hrs of nearly non-stop sleep a night, but it's hard to tell when it's going to be. I just sleep when he sleeps, and that has been working for me. We consider a "night" to be 7pm to 6am, which is when Jack is asleep. So that's all that's new. |
| Of course we're trying to get Link onto a set sleeping schedule. We have been really incredibly successful with implementing the 7pm bedtime for babies. However, the ability for Lincoln to sleep most of the night works only about 50% of the time it seems. There's been a few night where we barely hear a peep from him, and then there's last night where he just wanted to eat and poop all night...and maybe catch a few winks. I'm lucky enough to have a husband who understands that I need some sleep too, so he has been great about watching the boys when I need a bit of rest. I'm surprised by how much energy I do have, but then I did go to bed at 7:30pm last night. We suspect that it won't take too much longer before Lincoln will get the hang of sleeping at night. He has the ability to sleep for a long time, and with him eating the way he does his weight gain will only work to our benefit. We're curious to see what color Link's eyes become. In sunlight they look dark blue, but indoors they can look blue, green, or hazel. We suspect Jack has a double ear infection. He doesn't have a fever, but he has had bouts of hardcore screaming for the last two days. You can tell he is in pain, and with him tugging on his ears, there's not much to this mystery. Resolved: to visit the doctor tomorrow. Today was spent like the last couple Sundays - watching NFL. We were happy to see both our teams - Ravens and Seahawks - eke out last minute victories. It was some good football! |
| We thought that with Lincoln, being a newborn and all, would be super easy to change his diaper compared to Jack who squirms and can get up and walk away if he wants to. But instead it is quite the opposite. Jack often wants his diaper change and will willingly sit down on the changing mat and get the wipes out himself. Lincoln has surprised me by being incredibly squirmy...and kicky. The kicking I can understand, but I was surprised that he can already roll to his side. I can't remember if Jack was doing that in his first week or not. When laying belly-to-belly Link can also lift his head up for a few seconds to look you in the eye. I'm impressed by how strong he is. He continues to sleep really well. He went to bed at 11 last night and slept until 5:45 with only one feeding (at 2am) and no fuss in between. I feel compelled to document this as if it's a fluke. Jack's eyes keep getting puffy and kinda red as if some seasonal allergies are bothering him. He hasn't been eating anything different, so not sure what else it could be...unless he's allergic to his little brother. Hehehe... I had Chris watch Link while I got out of the house this morning. I just went to the library and the store, but it felt good to get out on my own for an hour. |
| Slowly we seem to be working into a routine. Link is a great sleeper. Last night he slept from midnight til 4:30 in the morning. I thought this was awesome!! Today was the first day we really had to deal with both Jack and Link by ourselves. Jack was sent home from daycare after he had a reaction to Cheerios. We're still not sure why Cheerios seem to do this to him on occasion. Every time I give him Cheerios, he's fine. But we asked the daycare if they use a different brand, and they don't - just the regular General Mills kind. Having both the boys at home isn't too bad - a bit busier as expected but tolerable if you accept that you just won't get much done. I was thrilled to see that after months of water retention me ankles reappeared this morning. Yay! My feet and calves look normal. Pretty soon I'll be able to wear my wedding ring again. Before long my breasts will be back to normal (not engorged). Soon my waist will reappear. This is the fun part of pregnancy - seeing your old self come back. I have rediscovered the love of the scale, which I have stepped on each morning to witness the slow melt of the pregnancy weight. Thank god Cheddar is a good breastfeeder!Yeah...we still call him Cheddar sometimes. Hehehe... It fits him so well. The weather has been really gorgeous lately - sunny and cool like early fall. Zuma! I wanted to get out and go to the park today, but with Jack feeling a little under the weather, we just hung out on the balcony. I remember the second night in the hospital I was really feeling unhinged, and the nurses were all concerned, acting like I was going to get postpartum depression. But now that we have been home for a couple days, I feel quite content. |
| So better late than never I say! Even though he was expected about a week earlier, Link finally made his appearance Friday the 14th. Everything went really well. I woke up really early Friday morning because Jack was coughing and having a hard time getting back to sleep. While dealing with him I noticed I was having a few mild contractions, so I stayed up and walked around for about an hour. That did the trick I guess. Labor was pretty similar to last time except I had to wait a little longer for the epidural since the anesthesiologist was in the OR with a C-section. Wasn't too bad though. From the time I first felt contractions to deliver was 10 hours, the same as last time. And only 15 mins of pushing. Lincoln slipped out so fast he scraped his head on my pelvic bone. Jack and Link are completely different newborns. Jack came out looking like a little fairy child with fine little features and big blue eyes. Skinny and long. Link, on the other hand, is like a buddha...or as the nurses were saying, a linebacker. He was 9 lbs, 2 oz with a big round face and heavy brow, wide shoulders and neck folds. LOL His belly was hanging out of the little newborn shirt they put on him. He is also kind of zen like buddha. He hasn't been crying too much...except when he has major gas...and he seems to feel better with a binky then anyway. He feeds so much better. Jack wouldn't breastfeed at all; he just couldn't latch on for some reason. Link took to it immediately. Right now he's been cluster feeding, getting in some marathon feeding sessions a couple times a day and sleeping most of the rest. He can sleep up to 5 hrs at a time. Last night he slept from 2-7am which I thought was awesome. Well, except that my milk came in and I was pretty sore in the morning. LOL Jack seems to think the new baby is pretty cool. He likes to try to hand his toys to Lincoln or bring extra blankets over to him when he's sleeping or feeding. Other than that it's business as usual for him. The one thing I have noticed about Jack in the last two weeks is how much more he is talking. You can really hear the beginnings of words, and he just chatters nonstop now that he doesn't use his binky much at all. My mom went home today. It was great she was able to stay. We had a great time, even when we were just waiting around for Link. We were able to go to the mall or the park and walk around, have coffee at Starbucks, pick Jack up a little early and play with him. It really makes me wish she was closer, so we could hang out more often. That's all for now. |
| This baby must be mighty comfy. I have been plagued by contractions all weekend, but nothing major happening yet. Yesterday I went to the OB again. She scheduled me for an induction on Monday in case nothing happens this week. God forbid! She seemed to think that he was close. I had progressed to 3.5 cm dilated. I'm trying not to think about it too much. My due date was so arbitrary from the beginning, there's no telling. I'm tired of guessing. I just wish I wasn't so uncomfortable. I felt bad because my Mom had to change her plans in order to stay an extra week. It's been nice to have her around waiting with me. She's also able to keep up with Jack better than me, which is nice. I think my Mom and I would be good travel partners. We move at the same pace. I have enjoyed going window shopping with her. We can sit and just talk for hours which is cool. I can't do that with just anyone. I think this is mostly because we tend to agree on a lot of issues. Last Friday we went to the new house for the home inspection. Nothing major, so everything has fallen into place with that. We're really excited about doubling our living space and having our own place. Other than that...the wait continues... |
| No new baby yet. I went to the OB yesterday and she said I was now 50% effaced and 2.5 cm dilated. I think she just added that half centimeter to make me feel better....it did kinda. She also stripped my membranes. Chris asked what that was, and I said, "I don't know but it didn't feel good." We did a little research, though, and found out that the amniotic sac is connected to the cervix, and if you rib those little membranes the cells released turn into the hormone that induces labor. Most people will go into labor within two days of having their membranes stripped. I remember them doing the same thing last year, and three days later I went into labor. I have definitely had more contractions since yesterday morning, but nothing regular and nothing intense enough to make me catch my breath (which is what I remember about the real contractions last time). This weekend was pretty busy with keeping up with Jack and trying to put an offer on the house we really liked. Sunday we went to Todd and Jaime's house. They do not have kids which was obvious because we had to tail Jack the whole time there making sure he didn't get into any of their things. Luckily they had a dog which served as a distraction for a bit. Unluckily, shortly after the dog licked Jack's face he started breaking out in hives.  I had some Benadryl cream in his bag, but Chris ran to the drugstore to get the liquid kind anyway.My mom came into town Monday afternoon, so it's been cool to have her around. We were able to do a bit of shopping on Tuesday. We saw that "Becoming Jane" movie which was alright. I think I have grown out of my teenage Jane Austen fetish though. Today we're planning to go to the Walters museum in Baltimore and do a bit more walking around in hopes that Lincoln will finally make an appearance. Yesterday was a pretty awesome day. Chris got the cash for his Scientific Acheivement Award from the Agency. His old office had been trying to get the check cut for the last six months. They went to his new office and presented in front of all his new coworkers, so Chris was pretty happy about that. And shortly after that we found out that the owners of the house we really liked accepted our offer and signed the contract. Yay! So that's awesome! So barring disaster at the home inspection (tomorrow), it should be good to go. We're really happy to get this house because it had everything we wanted. Happy dance!! So we will be able to start moving in mid-October and since our lease isn't up until end of November we'll be able to take our time to some degree. Plus the Navy will still have to help us move since we have six months after we separate to use their free moving services. Totally going to take advantage of that! |
| Argh! It's ridiculous! I thought tonight I would be golden for the best sleep of my life after such a busy day, but noooo.... I stayed home with Jack all day because daycare was having a "Training Day," which on a military facility sometimes really means 4-day vacation. Hehehe... Don't get me wrong, I can't fault them for wanting some time off because they work hard for me. They do a good job even though sometimes they ask me weird questions like why my son is so white. LOL Or like on Thursday when they asked me if he might have an ear infection because he falls down a lot. I was like, if I just started walking a couple months ago, I would probably fall down a lot too. Ha! So anyway...it was me and Jack all day. We had a good time. I pulled out all the stops for him because I wanted the day to go really smoothly. That means a full 45 mins of chasing him around outside, scribbling with crayons, splashing water in the bathtub. A nap - thank god! Then after lunch he "helped" me clean some stuff. It was all of his favorite stuff. So it was a good day but I was so physically exhausted by the time Chris got home! Phew! Lugging this extra weight around is exhausting already, let alone doing it while chasing a toddler around. To top off this already busy day, do I prop my feet up? Heck no! When Chris got home, we went looking at houses for two and a half hours. Jack was an angel!! We kept him happy with snacks in the car in between each house, and he liked looking at all the new places. Thankfully, most of them were empty so he could wander and not get into to anything. In fact, I never realized what a kick a toddler will find in completely empty houses. We saw one that was pretty much perfect, and a couple of others that were near-perfect. So we were happy. Our favorite has a completely redone kitchen with granite counters, picture windows and cathedral ceilings in the living room, decent everywhere else. It's within walking distance to our favorite park and has a decent yard. It was Jack's favorite too because they had a toddler who had left some of his toys out, and Jack helped himself. LOL So we'll probably put an offer on that one. After we got home, Jack pretty much collapsed from exhaustion. He barely finished his nighttime bottle. I managed to finish the last couple chapters of a book I've been reading and then fell asleep as well. But woke up at 2am to pee and haven't been able to fall back asleep. And now it's 4am and I'm awake. This is madness! I should have stayed in bed until I finally slipped off, but I couldn't get comfortable. *sigh* And I know Jack will be up at 6am. I'm starting to wish Chris and I didn't make that deal about him getting to sleep in on the weekends, as long as I could take a nap whenever I wanted to. Wonder how long that will last anyway after Baby Cheddar is born... Here's the book I finished. Another one on genealogy.
 Suppose I'll try to get some sleep again. |
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Yesterday I went to the OB. My nurse practitioner said I was 20% effaced, 2cm dilated. Yay! That means...well, not much... It could happen any old time it wanted to I suppose. I mean people can be 2 cm dilated for weeks...or at least days. I have heard that joke about going into labor on Labor Day SO MANY TIMES. Ha ha ha...I get it!  I just say, "Yeah, that would be nice." It's always men saying that too. They're so dumb sometimes. Actually, today is my last day at work, and my Mom is coming in this weekend. So it really would be nice to go into labor on Labor Day. Hehe...Chris just called me to say he blacked out in his office. I told him that's what he gets for not eating breakfast, but he says the real trigger was him reading about hernias online. Why was he reading about that? Because he thinks he has one. Wow, I hope not! I think that means he has to have surgery. Not major surgery, but still... So anyway he's decided to get checked out by his doctor.So I was looking up info on 1930s nightclubs and old Hollywood to get some ideas for my romance novel. I came across a bunch of old Fred and Ginger clips on YouTube...e.g.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=185qYmzRluk Look at her go in heels and that crazy dress! And then because I was looking at dancing videos, this one came up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C0GzFJGxno Holy crap! These guys can dance! The more I write in this novel, the more I realize that just about any novel I have attempted to write has been essentially full of romance. I just never really considered them that way because I was focused on things other than the romantic connection between the two main characters. We will be going and looking at a couple houses tomorrow or Saturday. I'm anxious to see if these places look as good as the listings. It's so hard to tell just by the pictures on the web. There's four in particular that look really tempting! We'll have to bring Jack, but we're hoping he'll enjoy looking around at a couple new places. He's an explorer type. Just have to make sure he doesn't explore too much. |
| Tonight is the full moon. Some people say that the full moon can cause labor...or more accurately it can cause your water to break. This is supposedly because the pull of the full moon can put pressure on your amniotic fluid. I'm not going to hold my breath, but you never know. I haven't felt a contraction all day and have been feeling extraordinarily energetic and motivated. Not sure what that means. I know I felt crummy for a couple days before Jack was born, but on the day of felt better than ever all day...until the contractions started that night. I have been spending a lot of time brushing up on my MS Office skills. Following my idea in my last entry about saving my journal, I created my own template for journal entries complete with a "BECKY" graphic. LOL It was good formatting practice for sure. After tackling the ins and outs of Word, I started fiddling with Access and created my very swanky Address Book database. I started with Friends and Family, but (barring full moon shenanigans) I plan on adding another section for Publishers and Journals. Hey, I might even get around to sending some pieces their way if I have all the addresses in one place. Chris and I are looking into houses again. Our lease is up end of November, so it seems like if we start now, we will be giving ourselves plenty of time to get something together. Plus it looked like there were a lot of good deals in the listings. We talked today with the Wells Fargo mortgage guy who updated all our info with our new jobs. It's such a good time to be a buyer. I feel like we have all the power in the world. Yesterday the daycare ladies asked me if Jack had a deficiency of some kind...like if he didn't get enough iron or something. They were like..."he is just so pale." I thought it rather ironic that these black ladies were telling me how white my kid was. I told them he was fine. I mean, he's as pale as I am, and no one's told me I have a deficiency.Posting the trail walk picture so everyone can see how pregnant I look. LOL We're so pale! ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| I had to do a private entry. I don't like to do that, but sometimes you have to write just for yourself. I really had to get some stuff off of my chest. As I grow older I appreciate more and more the art of censoring your emotions and releasing them in ways other than a steady stream of invective...which I'm not really that guilty of except maybe in a few instances. As important as it is to speak your mind, there's a time and place. Plus it feels very zen and Buddhist to just take a deep breath...and write a private entry...or call your Mom. I've been toying with the idea of going through the journal and deleting the older entries. I plan to copy and paste them into a Word doc file and save them to my jump drive where all of my writing that has survived my 20s lives. No journal I have ever started survives except this one. I journaled extensively in college, but those journals were deleted or thrown away by my ex-husband. I can't imagine much of it was worth keeping though. This one I would like to save since it's about my kids, but I don't necessarily think the whole of it has to live online forever. Yesterday I went for lunch and a movie with my friend Beth, which we haven't done in a long time. We saw "Stardust" which was pretty good in that fairy tale sort of way. I thought some of the bits were a little cheesy - the gay sky pirate for example - but other than that it was enjoyable. It was great to catch up with Beth. She used to work in my old office when she was in the Air Force, but since she got out and moved to a different office we haven't had as much time to hang out. She's getting married next year and wants to start a family. It's cool that my friends all tend to be doing that these days. Jack and Chris stayed home and chilled out yesterday. Both of them were feeling a bit under the weather. Must be some kind of summer cold. They seemed much better this morning after taking it easy. I have managed to escape, feeling awesome, better than expected. Since Saturday I have had an unexplained burst of energy and not too much of the crampiness or contractions I have come to associate with being in your final days of pregnancy. I finished Harry Potter Book 5 which I am not planning to write a review for, since I didn't for any of the other books. It was good. Those books are enjoyable. Each one is more enjoyable than the last for me since the first books were really more kids books and as the characters get older the storylines are better and more mature. I'm glad I saw the movie first now. I enjoyed the movie, but now having read the book I see all the holes in it. I'm glad I didn't have that hanging over the movie going experience. Rowling is impressive in the amount of creative detail she adds to her stories. I think she can bring a wizarding world to life even better than the filmmakers can. A couple games have come out for the Xbox 360 recently. One is Bioshock, which I haven't played because it looks really creepy and scary. Chris says he can only play it for an hour or so at a time because it is very atmospheric and things are always jumping out to startle you. *shivers* The graphics are pretty amazing though. The other game we got last week was Two Worlds, which I have played a bit of this weekend. I heard it was going to be like Oblivion which was #1 Awesome Super Good. It is pretty cool, but definitely not as good as Oblivion. Even though the questing is good and the storyline is promising, there are some limitations: the graphics are not next-gen, the menu is hard to negotiate, and the dialogue is retarded. And when I say retarded, I mean the worst Rennaissance Festival acting you can imagine. The characters look pretty stupid too. The guy I created managed to come out looking like he had been in a car accident and had bad reconstructive surgery. It's funny to read people rip on the game in the Amazon reviews. I still enjoy playing it, but where it falls short...lol it falls really short.
An added thought...because this entry isn't nearly long enough... Ha ha...Gonzales finally gave in and resigned. Pwnd. And Karl Rove is gone. Bush is going to have no one left except Condi and Cheney. Still not sure how Rove and Cheney haven't been indicted yet. What crooks! Part of me feels quite vindicated to see how the Bush Administration has become a complete disaster. Everything that I have said about this pack of fools since 2000 has come true in all the wrong ways. Unfortunately, all those opinion pieces I used to have on here have been deleted. I'll have to check my jump drive for them. I remember one of the first things I wrote and posted on this website was an essay about Iraq and the difficulties we would find if we invaded. That was a full year before the shock and awe. I'm telling you...we need an ICON president. Bush has been a joke. I agreed with Clinton politically but the Lewinsky thing was just dumb. I don't know if I could take another Clinton in office...even though I respect Hillary a lot. Obama certainly looks like an icon. |
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| It continues to be cool. Yesterday the temp didn't get much higher than 70 with rain and drizzle all day. I stopped by the store on the way to get Jack at daycare to get him a sweater since all the ones we were using this Spring don't fit him now. When we got home he had a ball splashing in the rain puddles and disassembling mud clods. A little mud never hurt anyone and I was glad to get out of the house in the cool weather. Out oldest cat (8yrs) is an orange tabby - Syler, Spaycekatt Fuzzypants, Supreme Allied Commander, Lord and Savior to Snoozle Trolls. (He has many titles.) He has been holding up nicely to a round of vet visits. He had to go in for his physical and vaccinations and then a visit to clean his teeth (he has bad teeth) and something about emptying his anal glands...  . It's good thing we have cat medical insurance for him because otherwise we would be dropping $1300 for all this crap. LOL Crazy!! Our $20 a month premium may add up but not to that much that's for sure. He still has to go back in September to get re-checked. Poor kitty...but as I said he has been coming home a little shaken but falling easily back into his routine. Fritza, one of the other cats, keeps hissing at him though...probably because he smells weird. Hehehe...In other news... Last night I had a dream about death. That's always a little disconcerting, especially when it's about a person you know to be perfectly alive. When I wake up from these dreams, I always wonder what this could possibly mean...probably my fears of this person dying...but it could be worse...could I actually secretly want them dead??? God forbid! But knowing human nature, I wouldn't be surprised. I say that because it works the other way. I dream sometimes of my Dad being alive, and I strongly suspect it's because I want him to be there. I'm probably reading way too much into it. Perhaps our dreams mean nothing...but it does give one pause. I'm not quite sure how I fit into this company yet. Of course, I haven't been able to get into the Agency offices yet and really do the work I was hired to do. This leaves me hanging out in a temporary space in the corporate building. The people here are very corporate!! OMG, the suits!! I sat in on a meeting about how much percentage of revenue each member of a team should be bringing in. Hmmm...now I should be concerned about my potential to bring in revenue...so different from the military. But this doesn't bother me as much as the fact that every time I meet someone new they seem to be almost too enthusiastic. It's not just "hey what's up." It's like "Welcome to the Firm!! We're so glad you're here! You're going to love it here! The Firm is just the best!" No really! I'm not joking - maybe slight exaggeration but not by much. Hearing these people go on about the almighty Firm is like listening to preteens talking about lip gloss. "OMG, try Raspberry Peach! Best tasting lip gloss EVER!" I mean...it seems like an okay place, but how do they know I'm going to love it here. Nothing's perfect. That's not pessimism...that's the truth. Say what you will about government work, but no one there can be blamed for being overly enthusiastic. Hehehe...I am actually missing some of that cynicism. It's like corporate zombie world here. LOL Give me a year. Maybe one day next year I'll be saying the same stuff to some new hire. I  the Firm. |
| Wow, this weekend went fast. Yesterday and today have been really cool weather wise. It seems Maryland is getting its first taste of early fall. Chris likes the cloudy rain days. He calls this Seattle weather and wishes it wasn't just one or two days here and there. Chris and Jack put together Baby Cheddar's bassinet yesterday. Jack's job was giving Dad the pieces he pointed too. I have a couple pictures that I managed to take before the camera died. It was pretty funny how serious he was about examining all the pieces. Jack seems to love to help. He thinks it is great fun. If you start a question "can you..." I think that he feels it is a matter of personal pride to prove that he can. On top of helping with the bassinet he helped me unload the groceries from the bags. In an attempt to "go green" Chris bought a few of those huge plastic Ikea bags, which I take into the store with me and reuse week to week. Four bags will carry a week's worth of groceries!! So no more worrying about paper or plastic because the baggers can't mess that up if you give them the bags. Chris brought them up from the car because a huge bag of cans is pretty heavy. He set them on the floor of the kitchen, and then Jack took each item out one at a time and handed it to me while I put them away. It really was a huge help because I didn't want to keep bending down. LOL Not much else happened this weekend. I had my first painful contractions yesterday. Not as bad as the real ones but enough to be pretty uncomfortable. Luckily, it was just a few here and there. I guess now that we have the bassinet set up and I remembered to finally pick up Newborn diapers, it's okay for the Cheddar to come. LOL I suppose I should pack that overnight bag to take to the hospital. Funny...I had that thing packed for most of my last two months with Jack. This time I'm like, "oh I'll just throw some stuff in a bag." Today I found out that my clearance is all set, so I get my Agency badge on Thursday and can start doing some real work. Yay! Well, at least, I'll be able to get in the building and start getting my computer accounts set up which can take a while also. So that has put me in a good mood! I get a little antsy in limbo mode. |
I took a break from Harry Potter to read through this extremely short little book. I picked it up because I was interested in getting my DNA tested, but after reading I'm still not sold on the procedure. At least in the case of my own DNA, I don't think it can add much information to my genealogical research.
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| I have been feeling a little emotional lately. And by saying that, I don't mean that I have been breaking down crying. That would be pretty out-of-character for me. I probably sound and look completely normal. But lately I've been getting that feeling like I just really need a hug. Sometimes I feel slightly overwhelmed...not with baby stuff really but just in general. It seems like at any given moment I have so many choices about what I could be doing or should be doing, and it's a lot to process. That's when I just take a deep breath and choose one of those many things and set my mind to it. That makes me feel better. I'm tired of doing housework. Usually, it is very cathartic for me. And really...shouldn't I be getting that urge to nest or something. But the last couple of days, I have come home and just did not want to do dishes or cook dinner or pick up toys or vacuum...or any of that stuff. I guess laundry is still okay. But that you just throw in the washer or dryer and forget about it for the most part. I think part of it is I wish we were in a house already. I'm tired of apartment living, and I'm still a little bitter about being so close to being a homeowner. Now we have decided to wait a couple months until after the baby. I can't resist looking at the real estate listings and that's only fueling this antsy feeling as well. As part of my latest genealogic craze, I was thinking about getting our DNA tested by the National Geographic Genographic Project. They would be able to tell you which haplogroup you belong to. For women they can only trace your mother's mother's mother etc. And it probably wouldn't be too interesting in my case. My mother's mother's mother's mother, Dora Frey, was born Magdalin Dorathea Frey in Germany. I wouldn't expect there to be any surprises there. It's not like they would test my DNA and say...hey, you're really Native American or something. For guys they can do paternal and maternal sides, and it would be pretty neat to do it for Chris's paternal side. Since his father's adopted, there's not much for a family historian for me to do. A DNA test would show the part of the world that side of the family is from. I was able to trace some of the German ancestors back to the 1600s. The Mormans have gone around the world and gone through a lot of local church documents, including some in Germany that have proved to be quite useful to me. Zuma! I'm almost done with chapter 4 of my romance novel. I had to claim intellectual property rights to my fiction writing, so BAH wouldn't try to steal my copyrights...as if they would want them. My company says that I have to ask their permission before I'm allowed to make any money off of of my writing because they don't want their employees working two jobs. LOL Those jokers! If I was actually making money as a romance novelist, I wouldn't be working here. I told them no worries, it was just a hobby. I was thinking Jack was going to be one of those high-strung lots-of-tantrums toddlers. But we seem to be getting good at anticipating problems, so he doesn't seem to be having too many tantrums now. Also, some of the moments I previously thought of as tantrums I have dismissed as just whining to express his displeasure. The real tantrums I have come to recognize as the flailing exorcist child moments. Last night, for instance, he had this huge freak out because he wanted to play and not get his diaper changed. It really scared him and me a little bit too. You could tell he didn't like that he had gotten so out of control. Even after the rage subsided, I had to hold him really tight for a few minutes for him to calm down. I'm not a fascist or anything. I usually let him come to me when it comes to diaper changes, but there's dirty diapers and then there's really dirty diapers. This was one of those that had to be taken care of pretty immediately before hazmat squads dropped in on us. |
| It is my second week here at the "global consulting firm" of Booz Allen Hamilton. I haven't done any consulting yet...or any technical writing which is what they hired me for. They want to get my clearance transferred from the Navy, so I can work "on site" as they say...meaning work within the various government agencies. This is supposed to take up to a month. And since I'm going on maternity leave in a couple weeks, they are hesitant to give me any projects to do in the meantime. What does this mean? Well, 8 hours of bumming around on the internet pretty much. *sigh* I mean, it's kind of cool to be left to your own devices but it gets old and can make the days kind of long. They do give up free coffee. And I get to stream NPR on my computer, so I have something to listen to. Zuma! I have been spending my time mostly looking at the various ancestry sites. By merging data and research done by more industrious genealogists, I have been able to trace some family lines (for me and Chris) back to Medieval England...for what that's worth. LOL I mean, it's just names and dates. It's not like it tells me anything about those people, which is frustrating for me since I like to know the history and story behind my ancestors. I suppose knowing when and where they lived can give me contextual clues to build my own stories about them. Hehehe... I haven't been able to do the same for the ancestors from anywhere other than the British Isles. The best I have been able to do is a couple German lines back to the 1700s. But I suppose I have a couple more weeks to keep trying. Some storms and rain came through late last week, and the heat broke a bit over the weekend and made for really nice weather. Yesterday we took Jack on a trail walk. It was the first time he was actually able to walk with us, and he thought it was cool to be able to stop and pick up rocks and leaves and sticks. Last Thursday I was able to take Jack to his new pediatrician who declared him completely recovered from that virus he had a few weeks ago. He also was able to recommend an allergist in the area who would be good, so when we are ready to get Jack tested (age 2), we'll know where to go. I really like this new place SO MUCH BETTER than the Navy medical. This group of four doctors seems to work really well together. They have weekend hours and someone on-call all the time. I just feel much more comfortable with them. We're still waiting for the appearance of Baby Cheddar. I think I am in Week 37. I can definitely feel a lot of pelvic pressure as his head is wedged right there between my hips. The Braxton-Hicks contractions are getting stronger and more uncomfortable too. I wonder if he'll really hold out until September. |
| It is really hot here. The grass is the color of straw even though we got rain and storms Sunday night. In fact, we lost power for a couple hours. Just when you are thankful of living in the era of A/C, you lose power. It got kinda muggy pretty quickly in our apartment, so I was glad it wasn't out for too long. And of course, as soon as your power goes out everything you can think of to do involves using some kind of electrical outlet. Hehehe... Other than that the weekend was rather uneventful. We went to the park in the morning before it was too hot, and Chris and I took turns going to see the Simpsons Movie. Yesterday was my first day at my new job, and of course, the first part of it was the dry orientation. I have a temporary office that I'm supposed to use until they get my clearance all straightened out. Most of the stuff I had to do today is admin type stuff anyway.In the afternoon I was walking around just talking to people, some of which are also waiting for clearances. This girl Tasha said that she had been waiting for three weeks and was passing time by researching her family tree on ancestry.com. So we got to talking about that. And I ran into another one of the technical writers as well. He was telling me what sort of projects he has worked on over the past few years. Sounded pretty cool! They have free coffee...and it doesn't taste too damn bad. It's nice to wear business attire. I didn't feel quite so pregnant in my nice clothes as I do bumming around the house in sweats. I just wish they made maternity shoes. My nice shoes (which fit a few months ago mind you) were kind of tight in the morning and got progressively worse as the day went on as my feet started to swell more. By the time I got home it was like that scene in Cinderella where the stepsister is trying to squeeze into the dainty glass slipper. I am kind of getting tired of the Harry Potter dreams. Last night it was Harry Potter first and then morphed into Smoky and the Bandit. I can't quite recall exactly how those movies got combined, but I woke up with "East Bound and Drive" in my head. Speaking of movies Tivo recorded "Big" for us, which I hadn't seen in forever. It has one of the funniest scenes in a movie...IMO...which is that part when Tom Hanks is dressed in this white tux with gold embroidery and he's chewing on one of those oriental baby corns like it was a big corn on the cob. I don't know...I just always get a kick out of seeing that. Hehehe... |
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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!
Tuesday would have been my last day until I turned 18.
Stupid Ravens.
