e and i have developed a harry potter obsession. admittedly, it started with my love for the charming movies. i forced e to participate in a harry potter marathon 2 weeks before the final film hit theaters. he was hooked.
since then we have both read all of the books and purchased the first seven installments.
we are nerds.
so two nights ago after jp fell asleep and calvin was resting as well, we decided to pop in one of the HP movies we now own and cozy up on the couch together.
calvin had other plans. screaming ensued for 1.5 hours. he was inconsolable. around midnight he finally went off to dream land and we firmly agreed that no sandman was going to destroy our cuddle plans! e went out to smoke before we started the movie again.
i was asleep before he got back inside.
i woke up an hour later, my head soaking wet. i was in such a sleep induced daze that i began panicking and interrogating my husband: "why am i wet? what happened?! why is my head wet!?!" i was even crying.
this night is going so well.
e finally explained: "when i came back in from smoking you were already asleep, but i knew you wanted to cuddle, so i got a hard cider and came and sat down on the couch and moved your head onto my lap so we were cuddling. but i fell asleep holding the cider... and i must have accidentally let it slip and pour out onto your head..."
college kids, you WISH you knew how to party like us.
23 October, 2011
19 October, 2011
And We're Back
i will not make excuses. we have had a rough 2 months and blogging was so low down on my list of priorities that i can't honestly even say that i feel bad about my absence. so i won't apologize either! :)
but we are 2 weeks out from e's first year-long deployment as an EOD tech and i think that this blog will end up being the place i can go to help find my sanity since my husband won't be able to fulfill that role as consistently as he usually does.
time has taken on a constant bi-polar quality. i find myself angrily marking the hours during the work day that e spends away from us, cursing the inventory, physicals, gear collecting and other tasks that keep him on post until dinner time or later. once he's home i begin the sleep battle-- how late can i stay awake with him before i forfeit tomorrow's functionality? and all of the hours between angry and desperate i'm trying to find joy in every moment that we spend in the same room, soaking in the feeling of his presence, the warmth of another adult in the house with me, relaxed and hanging out on the couch watching some stupid show that we love.
will this be the last bath he gives jp until he comes home for r&r next year? will this be the last time i make him tuna melts, one of his favorites? how can i make this time special, make it count? how much is too much to ask of him? how few disagreements and frustrated outbursts can we manage before he leaves? two tuesdays left together. two mondays. after today there will only be two wednesdays. possibly 3 days of football. six speech therapy sessions. 17 dinners. probably somewhere close to 30 loads of laundry ;) it's exhausting. but i'll have a year to catch up on sleep after the boys go to bed. if, God forbid, anything were ever to happen to him, i will never regret staying up later, working harder to create less friction, making more memories.
i'm overwhelmed with emotions and fears right now. however, there isn't much i can do but walk forward into the storm and press on. it's not mere strength that keeps military wives afloat, it's the acute knowledge of necessity.
so here we go, into the unknown, because it's necessary. because it's asked of us and refusal in this case would mean giving up on a husband, a father, a soldier, a marriage, a family and a way of life. we weren't ignorant of this part of the lifestyle when we chose it.
time to put our money where our mouths are.
but we are 2 weeks out from e's first year-long deployment as an EOD tech and i think that this blog will end up being the place i can go to help find my sanity since my husband won't be able to fulfill that role as consistently as he usually does.
time has taken on a constant bi-polar quality. i find myself angrily marking the hours during the work day that e spends away from us, cursing the inventory, physicals, gear collecting and other tasks that keep him on post until dinner time or later. once he's home i begin the sleep battle-- how late can i stay awake with him before i forfeit tomorrow's functionality? and all of the hours between angry and desperate i'm trying to find joy in every moment that we spend in the same room, soaking in the feeling of his presence, the warmth of another adult in the house with me, relaxed and hanging out on the couch watching some stupid show that we love.
will this be the last bath he gives jp until he comes home for r&r next year? will this be the last time i make him tuna melts, one of his favorites? how can i make this time special, make it count? how much is too much to ask of him? how few disagreements and frustrated outbursts can we manage before he leaves? two tuesdays left together. two mondays. after today there will only be two wednesdays. possibly 3 days of football. six speech therapy sessions. 17 dinners. probably somewhere close to 30 loads of laundry ;) it's exhausting. but i'll have a year to catch up on sleep after the boys go to bed. if, God forbid, anything were ever to happen to him, i will never regret staying up later, working harder to create less friction, making more memories.
i'm overwhelmed with emotions and fears right now. however, there isn't much i can do but walk forward into the storm and press on. it's not mere strength that keeps military wives afloat, it's the acute knowledge of necessity.
so here we go, into the unknown, because it's necessary. because it's asked of us and refusal in this case would mean giving up on a husband, a father, a soldier, a marriage, a family and a way of life. we weren't ignorant of this part of the lifestyle when we chose it.
time to put our money where our mouths are.
23 August, 2011
At Least This Time I Have an Excuse
so, we got settled in to the new house. we got into a decent routine. i had a week of great cooking to include an experimental recipe that i was 100% prepared to blog about.
and then
calvin james was born august 9, 2011, 6lbs 14oz, 19.5in long, at 8:50 p.m.
labor lasted 8 hours with about 2 minutes of pushing. epidural free the whole way :) he's beautiful and we are all settling into life as a family of four.
and then
calvin james was born august 9, 2011, 6lbs 14oz, 19.5in long, at 8:50 p.m.
labor lasted 8 hours with about 2 minutes of pushing. epidural free the whole way :) he's beautiful and we are all settling into life as a family of four.
29 July, 2011
Thirty Seven
time flies when you're having fun! or getting robbed?
it doesn't seem possible that we've reached "full term". today i am 37 full weeks pregnant. three weeks until my due date. if you passed me on the street you could still miss the fact that i am a human incubator. two moves in 2.5 months makes it pretty hard to gain excessive amounts of weight, and i carry small anyhow. you should see the looks on people's faces when they ask how far along i am. i'm convinced that most of them think i am either lying or exaggerating.
as we're counting down days (and sometimes hours or minutes!) i find myself reflecting back to this point in my pregnancy with jp. the differences are so vast. there was so much anxiety with jp, and frustration. my pre-eclampsia was being all but dismissed by midwives who were so sure that their years of experience overrode my knowledge of my own body. i was bored and far too focused on the unknowns inside my tummy and the unknowns that surround a first time pregnancy and labor. i over-thought EVERYTHING. my hormones were wildly out of control (something i did not fully realize until a few months after jp was born. i apologized to e repeatedly). jp was a very strong baby who was not shy about letting me know that he had run out of what he considered adequate space. he bruised me from the inside more than once (that notion held true after delivery. we expected a typical newborn--always curled up, limbs tight. he began sprawling out in his sleep almost immediately). i was desperate to have him out, to hold him, to be his mommy and have our family. and 2 days from where i am right now, my wish came true through a nightmarish labor that was induced because my pre-eclampsia (you know, the thing i had been trying to warn the midwives about for weeks) had flared up to a level that a doctor considered "more hostile for your baby than life outside your womb". we began induction at 37w2d and he was born at 37w4d, measuring at about the size of a 36 week-er and not breathing at all. he spent the first 12 hours of his life under an oxygen hood. in recovery, after he was born, my blood pressure capped out in the 170s/120s. it was a bit traumatizing.
obviously entirely worth it though, don't get me wrong!!! and he was fine, just a bit traumatized from the birth as well. but it wasn't something i wanted to relive, ever.
so i've been nervous throughout this pregnancy, keeping an eye on anything that might have seemed strange or indicative of a rising problem. there were several things that caught my attention- uncharacteristically low blood pressure, high heart rate, dizzy spells. then i had the seizure and the glucose test and a simple diet change turned the whole pregnancy around. my blood pressure leveled out, as did my heart rate. the dizzy spells we all but gone. my mood seemed to even out as did my energy levels. the pregnancy itself, if isolated from all of the outside events of our lives this last month or so, has been absolutely amazing.
for the last 2 weeks i have complained about the discomfort (there's a lot!) but i have consistently said that i just want a little more time with him in my belly. not because i enjoy the feeling of being pregnant, but because i'm just not quite ready yet. a lot of that had to do with wanting to be sure we had internet set up before he came (i know that seems silly, but it's my easiest form of mass communication with everyone!). this week jp and i are both ill and that is my new reason for wanting some more time.
truth be told, i think what it really comes down to is this: may, june, and the first half of july were painful for us as a family. things were sort of falling apart at the seams. i felt as though i watched all of the dreams i've held on to for the last 3 years be stripped away from me, one by one. i turned into a monster, a person that i regret my husband having to live with and my child having to suffer through.
e will tell you it wasn't that bad. he's lying.
and then we had the "incident" and i went from being what i can only characterize as a royal bitch to nerve-wracked mess.
we have finally settled back into a peaceful, enjoyable routine. i feel creative again, and calm. i feel normal. jp has gone through a round of teething and now this cold, so he's been extra cuddly. i feel no need to change anything right now.
it's not that i don't want another baby, please don't misunderstand. i am so ready to welcome another sweet, precious boy into our lives, to join the leagues of extraordinary women surrounded by testosterone :) i'm curious to meet this little man and get to know him and his very distinct personality. i'm looking forward to pictures of all of "my boys" and watching jp with his little brother. i'm so looking forward to the bonding of breastfeeding again and the tender hold of a moby wrap. i can't wait to ogle over every developmental milestone.
but i can't lie: i'm enjoying every second of the life we have now with just the three of us. it's the love of this life that prompted us to have another child. we cherish being a family. i know my heart will swell and open wider than it is now and i will be even happier than i can imagine. but i'm in no rush for that expansion. it will come when it's supposed to, and no sooner. and i'm at peace with that. if it happens in the next few days i'll admittedly be upset- i don't want to be in labor with a cold!! but ultimately, this weekend or 3 weeks from now on my due date, it's really irrelevant to me.
which is good, because it's also not up to me!
what i've learned in this last trimester, amidst all the chaos, is that the best i can do is focus on my family in the here and now, giving them the best of myself daily and enjoying as much of them as possible before the sun sets. i will fail sometimes, but for the most part, this is a pretty easy goal. how could i want to give anything less than my best to people like this:
it doesn't seem possible that we've reached "full term". today i am 37 full weeks pregnant. three weeks until my due date. if you passed me on the street you could still miss the fact that i am a human incubator. two moves in 2.5 months makes it pretty hard to gain excessive amounts of weight, and i carry small anyhow. you should see the looks on people's faces when they ask how far along i am. i'm convinced that most of them think i am either lying or exaggerating.
from the side
from the front-ish
as we're counting down days (and sometimes hours or minutes!) i find myself reflecting back to this point in my pregnancy with jp. the differences are so vast. there was so much anxiety with jp, and frustration. my pre-eclampsia was being all but dismissed by midwives who were so sure that their years of experience overrode my knowledge of my own body. i was bored and far too focused on the unknowns inside my tummy and the unknowns that surround a first time pregnancy and labor. i over-thought EVERYTHING. my hormones were wildly out of control (something i did not fully realize until a few months after jp was born. i apologized to e repeatedly). jp was a very strong baby who was not shy about letting me know that he had run out of what he considered adequate space. he bruised me from the inside more than once (that notion held true after delivery. we expected a typical newborn--always curled up, limbs tight. he began sprawling out in his sleep almost immediately). i was desperate to have him out, to hold him, to be his mommy and have our family. and 2 days from where i am right now, my wish came true through a nightmarish labor that was induced because my pre-eclampsia (you know, the thing i had been trying to warn the midwives about for weeks) had flared up to a level that a doctor considered "more hostile for your baby than life outside your womb". we began induction at 37w2d and he was born at 37w4d, measuring at about the size of a 36 week-er and not breathing at all. he spent the first 12 hours of his life under an oxygen hood. in recovery, after he was born, my blood pressure capped out in the 170s/120s. it was a bit traumatizing.
obviously entirely worth it though, don't get me wrong!!! and he was fine, just a bit traumatized from the birth as well. but it wasn't something i wanted to relive, ever.
so i've been nervous throughout this pregnancy, keeping an eye on anything that might have seemed strange or indicative of a rising problem. there were several things that caught my attention- uncharacteristically low blood pressure, high heart rate, dizzy spells. then i had the seizure and the glucose test and a simple diet change turned the whole pregnancy around. my blood pressure leveled out, as did my heart rate. the dizzy spells we all but gone. my mood seemed to even out as did my energy levels. the pregnancy itself, if isolated from all of the outside events of our lives this last month or so, has been absolutely amazing.
for the last 2 weeks i have complained about the discomfort (there's a lot!) but i have consistently said that i just want a little more time with him in my belly. not because i enjoy the feeling of being pregnant, but because i'm just not quite ready yet. a lot of that had to do with wanting to be sure we had internet set up before he came (i know that seems silly, but it's my easiest form of mass communication with everyone!). this week jp and i are both ill and that is my new reason for wanting some more time.
truth be told, i think what it really comes down to is this: may, june, and the first half of july were painful for us as a family. things were sort of falling apart at the seams. i felt as though i watched all of the dreams i've held on to for the last 3 years be stripped away from me, one by one. i turned into a monster, a person that i regret my husband having to live with and my child having to suffer through.
e will tell you it wasn't that bad. he's lying.
and then we had the "incident" and i went from being what i can only characterize as a royal bitch to nerve-wracked mess.
we have finally settled back into a peaceful, enjoyable routine. i feel creative again, and calm. i feel normal. jp has gone through a round of teething and now this cold, so he's been extra cuddly. i feel no need to change anything right now.
it's not that i don't want another baby, please don't misunderstand. i am so ready to welcome another sweet, precious boy into our lives, to join the leagues of extraordinary women surrounded by testosterone :) i'm curious to meet this little man and get to know him and his very distinct personality. i'm looking forward to pictures of all of "my boys" and watching jp with his little brother. i'm so looking forward to the bonding of breastfeeding again and the tender hold of a moby wrap. i can't wait to ogle over every developmental milestone.
but i can't lie: i'm enjoying every second of the life we have now with just the three of us. it's the love of this life that prompted us to have another child. we cherish being a family. i know my heart will swell and open wider than it is now and i will be even happier than i can imagine. but i'm in no rush for that expansion. it will come when it's supposed to, and no sooner. and i'm at peace with that. if it happens in the next few days i'll admittedly be upset- i don't want to be in labor with a cold!! but ultimately, this weekend or 3 weeks from now on my due date, it's really irrelevant to me.
which is good, because it's also not up to me!
what i've learned in this last trimester, amidst all the chaos, is that the best i can do is focus on my family in the here and now, giving them the best of myself daily and enjoying as much of them as possible before the sun sets. i will fail sometimes, but for the most part, this is a pretty easy goal. how could i want to give anything less than my best to people like this:
28 July, 2011
Another One of those Hiatus Things...
so, life got turned upside down. severely.
our house was broken into in the middle of the day on june 26. e was out of town at a training session and jp's godmother was visiting us. we had gone swimming and came back to find all of our valuable belongings piled up in our living room, some things stashed into one of our own duffle bags, and the master closet and dresser ransacked.
it was the 4th in a string of break ins that occurred in houses that all backed up to one area of woods. the woods, in our case, lined the side of our house, and they used the windows on that said of the house to escape. they had previously stolen gaming systems, a few other electronics, and most recently, guns.
we had, from what we could tell, interrupted them. their modus operandi appears to be that 3 of them break into a home, one keeps lookout while 2 pile everything into one place and then a vehicle comes for them to load into. we got home before the vehicle arrived and thus nothing was actually stolen from us.
except our sanity and sense of security. the knowledge that these people had broken into 4 homes that were all within .25 miles of each other, that it took police officers more than 15 minutes to respond to our 911 call, that no pictures, evidence, or notes were taken at our home by the police, that the perpetrators had stolen weapons a few days prior, that our house was chosen because of its attachment to the woods, and that they now knew everything e had worth stealing in our home added up to an irrefutable fact for me: we could no longer live there.
we checked into an extended stay hotel until e could come back home and began working out the possibility and logistics of moving. our landlord, sherry corona of remax prime realty in columbus, ga, was an unbelievable grace. she let us out of our lease and showed us another home that we could move into, one that she still managed and one that was miraculously VERY close to 7 other families in e's company. it was also a solid 10 minute shorter commute to work. we began moving in with the help of people we barely know on june 30.
we were moved in by july 4 and due to some difficulties and at&t's HORRIBLE customer service, we have been without internet until today.
the few times i've been able to haul a computer and my child to a place with wifi, the blog simply wasn't a priority!
so let's do a quick catch up- we have a new home. jp has been in speech therapy for a month and seems to be making some progress. he is still as happy and goofy as ever.
e is loving his job and his company and is looking at deploying some time between november and april. we shall see!
i am 37 weeks pregnant as of tomorrow and baby calvin is due any day now! we're ready and then.... well... not so ready haha! it's been an upheaval of a month and things are finally settling down. we'd like to enjoy the calm for a few more weeks if we can, but the baby certainly has a plan of his own :)
sorry this isn't longer or more explanatory, but i would like to cut my losses with the old house and move forward from here, so that's precisely what i intend to do with the blog as well :)
our house was broken into in the middle of the day on june 26. e was out of town at a training session and jp's godmother was visiting us. we had gone swimming and came back to find all of our valuable belongings piled up in our living room, some things stashed into one of our own duffle bags, and the master closet and dresser ransacked.
it was the 4th in a string of break ins that occurred in houses that all backed up to one area of woods. the woods, in our case, lined the side of our house, and they used the windows on that said of the house to escape. they had previously stolen gaming systems, a few other electronics, and most recently, guns.
we had, from what we could tell, interrupted them. their modus operandi appears to be that 3 of them break into a home, one keeps lookout while 2 pile everything into one place and then a vehicle comes for them to load into. we got home before the vehicle arrived and thus nothing was actually stolen from us.
except our sanity and sense of security. the knowledge that these people had broken into 4 homes that were all within .25 miles of each other, that it took police officers more than 15 minutes to respond to our 911 call, that no pictures, evidence, or notes were taken at our home by the police, that the perpetrators had stolen weapons a few days prior, that our house was chosen because of its attachment to the woods, and that they now knew everything e had worth stealing in our home added up to an irrefutable fact for me: we could no longer live there.
we checked into an extended stay hotel until e could come back home and began working out the possibility and logistics of moving. our landlord, sherry corona of remax prime realty in columbus, ga, was an unbelievable grace. she let us out of our lease and showed us another home that we could move into, one that she still managed and one that was miraculously VERY close to 7 other families in e's company. it was also a solid 10 minute shorter commute to work. we began moving in with the help of people we barely know on june 30.
we were moved in by july 4 and due to some difficulties and at&t's HORRIBLE customer service, we have been without internet until today.
the few times i've been able to haul a computer and my child to a place with wifi, the blog simply wasn't a priority!
so let's do a quick catch up- we have a new home. jp has been in speech therapy for a month and seems to be making some progress. he is still as happy and goofy as ever.
e is loving his job and his company and is looking at deploying some time between november and april. we shall see!
i am 37 weeks pregnant as of tomorrow and baby calvin is due any day now! we're ready and then.... well... not so ready haha! it's been an upheaval of a month and things are finally settling down. we'd like to enjoy the calm for a few more weeks if we can, but the baby certainly has a plan of his own :)
sorry this isn't longer or more explanatory, but i would like to cut my losses with the old house and move forward from here, so that's precisely what i intend to do with the blog as well :)
15 June, 2011
Labor of Love Part Deux
a trip to joanns for the perfect hospital gown fabric was OVERLY successful.
i ended up buying gown material in 3 different flannel prints.
in my defense, that particular section of goods was 50% off and, let's be honest here, who doesn't want options while in labor? if i'm going to be subjected to hours of pain and bodily malformation, i would like to have a say in at least a few things.
so i chose materials based on the possible mood i might be in while wearing them.
if i'm feeling cheerful, excited, or just plain loud, this is the print i'll be showcasing around my soon-to-be-missing baby bump:
i knew that having to combine two materials would take more time and put my very limited skills to the test which is why i chose to do this gown first-- i knew all of the excitement about starting the project would carry me through to the end!
i was right! it DID carry me through!! and i love the result! the collar is a bit quaker-ish and tight, but i wanted to be sure that it wasn't too loose so i wouldn't have to worry about accidental lady-part exposure during picture time. i modified this gown quite a bit from the original pattern-- aside from the top being a different material from the bottom, i made the sleeves tighter, the neckline tighter, added ribbon trim to the collar instead of a plain hem, used snaps to close the shoulder and the back, added belt loops under both sleeves, and will be using ribbon to keep the whole thing looking fitted and pretty :)
the snaps are pearl-front hammer-snaps (so SO easy! SOOOOOOO easy!). i placed the inside snap (the bottom part that you don't see) about 1-2 inches over from the hem so that when the gown is snapped shut there's a nice little panel of extra material to block any view of my backside from sneaking through holes!
and this lil' beauty is a sort of prototype of the hairpiece that will go with the dress. jp kindly ruined a lace drape that i had in the kitchen a few days ago. my sewing machine is much too rough to be trusted to sew delicate lace, so i set the material aside to give my brain a few days to come up with a possible re-purposing project.
i should mention that i bought this set of drapes for $6 at a garage sale. and they are beautiful. and huge. and because of that i am determined not to let them go to waste!
thankfully, i won't have to! there is a row of these flower/leaf embroideries on each drape, so i decided to cut one of them out and see how it would look.
i'm both impressed and pleased with myself, yes.
my plan is to glue the lacy flower to a swatch of the same printed material i used on the fancy gown, and then iron that set-up on to a piece of interfacing for a bit more stability (i just discovered interfacing on my trip to joanns. it may change my life). once that's all said and done i will attach 3-4 hairclips to various points so i can use the hair piece to pull back more than one section of my hair and keep it firmly in place, all while looking uber classy.
again, the hospital gown pattern came from www.lazygirldesigns.com and was totally free! you print it out at home on plain old 8.5x11 computer paper and then tape it together. and you can give a donation for use of the pattern which i think is great :)
i ended up buying gown material in 3 different flannel prints.
in my defense, that particular section of goods was 50% off and, let's be honest here, who doesn't want options while in labor? if i'm going to be subjected to hours of pain and bodily malformation, i would like to have a say in at least a few things.
so i chose materials based on the possible mood i might be in while wearing them.
if i'm feeling cheerful, excited, or just plain loud, this is the print i'll be showcasing around my soon-to-be-missing baby bump:
if i'm all sentimental and weepy, this will be the winner:
and if i'm feeling beautiful and glowy and divinely in touch with my feminine powers of birthing, this:
if i am a miserable screaming woman, i may just opt for a drab hospital issued gown that i will later rip to shreds in a rage of fury.
there wasn't enough of the fancy shmansy material left for an entire gown unless i wanted my classy look to include half of my thigh, so i found matching solid navy and had to piece together top and bottom pieces.
i knew that having to combine two materials would take more time and put my very limited skills to the test which is why i chose to do this gown first-- i knew all of the excitement about starting the project would carry me through to the end!
i was right! it DID carry me through!! and i love the result! the collar is a bit quaker-ish and tight, but i wanted to be sure that it wasn't too loose so i wouldn't have to worry about accidental lady-part exposure during picture time. i modified this gown quite a bit from the original pattern-- aside from the top being a different material from the bottom, i made the sleeves tighter, the neckline tighter, added ribbon trim to the collar instead of a plain hem, used snaps to close the shoulder and the back, added belt loops under both sleeves, and will be using ribbon to keep the whole thing looking fitted and pretty :)
the snaps are pearl-front hammer-snaps (so SO easy! SOOOOOOO easy!). i placed the inside snap (the bottom part that you don't see) about 1-2 inches over from the hem so that when the gown is snapped shut there's a nice little panel of extra material to block any view of my backside from sneaking through holes!
and this lil' beauty is a sort of prototype of the hairpiece that will go with the dress. jp kindly ruined a lace drape that i had in the kitchen a few days ago. my sewing machine is much too rough to be trusted to sew delicate lace, so i set the material aside to give my brain a few days to come up with a possible re-purposing project.
i should mention that i bought this set of drapes for $6 at a garage sale. and they are beautiful. and huge. and because of that i am determined not to let them go to waste!
thankfully, i won't have to! there is a row of these flower/leaf embroideries on each drape, so i decided to cut one of them out and see how it would look.
i'm both impressed and pleased with myself, yes.
my plan is to glue the lacy flower to a swatch of the same printed material i used on the fancy gown, and then iron that set-up on to a piece of interfacing for a bit more stability (i just discovered interfacing on my trip to joanns. it may change my life). once that's all said and done i will attach 3-4 hairclips to various points so i can use the hair piece to pull back more than one section of my hair and keep it firmly in place, all while looking uber classy.
again, the hospital gown pattern came from www.lazygirldesigns.com and was totally free! you print it out at home on plain old 8.5x11 computer paper and then tape it together. and you can give a donation for use of the pattern which i think is great :)
10 June, 2011
Labor of Love
jp's birth story is both one of the greatest days of my life and the most horrifying. for those of you who are familiar with the statistics related to complications from induction, we experienced a number of them. thankfully not a c-section, but many other upsetting problems, including a baby who was born blue and not breathing. he was fine, mind you, just a little traumatized from the whole thing himself!
i only have one picture of me holding jp after he was born. there is one of e too. just one. neither of us held him right away. they had to get him breathing and warmed up and even when we did get to hold him, it was less than a minute, total, for both of us combined, before he was taken to the nicu.
in said picture, i look like a hot mess. i mean that. is it a beautiful picture? of course it is. i was holding my first child for the first time. i'm glowing. and swollen. and hooked up to every machine imaginable.
so this time will be different. and so far (seizure aside) it has been. i'm not showing the signs of pre-eclampsia the way i was with jp and i am VERY confident that we are going to make it to full term and i will go into labor on my own and go through all of it as naturally as possible.
i've often called this my "re-do" labor.
in the spirit of second chances, i'm making a labor outfit. a classy, comfy, fitted hospital gown and some type of hair piece that will let me keep my hair back without leaving me looking frizzy and frumpy. possibly some cute socks. i may even attempt a bit of make up.
i know what you're saying. "you're ridiculous. you're feeding into vanity. it's labor, you should look disheveled and worn out. why do yo even care? that's really shallow."
but this is for me. i have every intention of holding my baby the second he comes out this time and for hundreds and thousands of pictures to be snapped. and when i look at those pictures, i want everything about them to be a joyful reminder. my hair may still get quite tousled. i may be swollen and sweaty. but at least there will be hints of dignity and the pictures will be that much more personal when i think of the work i put into planning for this baby's arrival.
and when he sees the pictures and asks about his birth story, i can tell him that i was so excited about meeting him that i spent weeks preparing to make it special and memorable. that i was thinking about him and creating for him even before he came.
you were wanted little man. you were nurtured before you came out, your body and your soul.
away from the sappy! a great website called lazy girl designs has a free pattern for a hospital gown. you can donate any amount for use of the pattern if you so choose :) all you do is print it on to plain ole computer paper and tape it together. it's insanely easy. INSANELY.
after finding some other bloggers who had made the gown and taking in their alterations, i decided to do a practice run.
my modifications to the original pattern would be: taking it in about 6 inches and lowering the hem a solid 6 inches (i suffer from chronic string bean syndrome, even in pregnancy), adding belt loops to make an empire waist line (i'll lace a wide ribbon through the loops so it will be more fitted) and using snaps instead of velcro on the left sleeve.
i took the drapes that we once used in jp's room and began cutting away!
i took it nice and slow--mostly out of necessity! we have an 18 month old for heaven's sake!-- and 3 days later i had this:
and my silly jungle scarf :)
this is obviously not the final product! i need to go find my fabric (s) and see what speaks to me, and i'll accessorize from there. but i'm pretty excited about having a "look" during labor :)
i only have one picture of me holding jp after he was born. there is one of e too. just one. neither of us held him right away. they had to get him breathing and warmed up and even when we did get to hold him, it was less than a minute, total, for both of us combined, before he was taken to the nicu.
in said picture, i look like a hot mess. i mean that. is it a beautiful picture? of course it is. i was holding my first child for the first time. i'm glowing. and swollen. and hooked up to every machine imaginable.
so this time will be different. and so far (seizure aside) it has been. i'm not showing the signs of pre-eclampsia the way i was with jp and i am VERY confident that we are going to make it to full term and i will go into labor on my own and go through all of it as naturally as possible.
i've often called this my "re-do" labor.
in the spirit of second chances, i'm making a labor outfit. a classy, comfy, fitted hospital gown and some type of hair piece that will let me keep my hair back without leaving me looking frizzy and frumpy. possibly some cute socks. i may even attempt a bit of make up.
i know what you're saying. "you're ridiculous. you're feeding into vanity. it's labor, you should look disheveled and worn out. why do yo even care? that's really shallow."
but this is for me. i have every intention of holding my baby the second he comes out this time and for hundreds and thousands of pictures to be snapped. and when i look at those pictures, i want everything about them to be a joyful reminder. my hair may still get quite tousled. i may be swollen and sweaty. but at least there will be hints of dignity and the pictures will be that much more personal when i think of the work i put into planning for this baby's arrival.
and when he sees the pictures and asks about his birth story, i can tell him that i was so excited about meeting him that i spent weeks preparing to make it special and memorable. that i was thinking about him and creating for him even before he came.
you were wanted little man. you were nurtured before you came out, your body and your soul.
away from the sappy! a great website called lazy girl designs has a free pattern for a hospital gown. you can donate any amount for use of the pattern if you so choose :) all you do is print it on to plain ole computer paper and tape it together. it's insanely easy. INSANELY.
after finding some other bloggers who had made the gown and taking in their alterations, i decided to do a practice run.
my modifications to the original pattern would be: taking it in about 6 inches and lowering the hem a solid 6 inches (i suffer from chronic string bean syndrome, even in pregnancy), adding belt loops to make an empire waist line (i'll lace a wide ribbon through the loops so it will be more fitted) and using snaps instead of velcro on the left sleeve.
i took the drapes that we once used in jp's room and began cutting away!
i took it nice and slow--mostly out of necessity! we have an 18 month old for heaven's sake!-- and 3 days later i had this:
this definitely boosts my confidence-- i can totally make a great designer hospital gown all by myself!
no designer would neglect accessories ;) here's my makeshift safari headband
and my silly jungle scarf :)
this is obviously not the final product! i need to go find my fabric (s) and see what speaks to me, and i'll accessorize from there. but i'm pretty excited about having a "look" during labor :)
05 June, 2011
I Wanna Be A Billionaire, So Frickin Bad
and i'm going to be.
i told e that i was going to win the lottery this week because that's the only logical way to offset what a horrible past week we all had.
so far i think i'm off to the right start.
i've stashed away a small amount of cash (really small... like $25 small) from things i've sold on craigslist and change from e's pockets and today i decided i really wanted to hit up a thrift store to see if i could find some good prints to use to turn into other things.
let's face it, most of the things at really cheap thrift stores cannot be salvaged in their current forms.
it turned out that goodwill was open until 6! SWEET! win #1.
so i drove out. the prices were a bit disappointing-- $2 for all tanks, $4.50 for all pants. i know that's still cheap, but it's not nearly as cheap as i've seen in other places. and all baby clothes were $2. that's way too much for me.
however, the shoes were right up my alley. $4 for a pair of deep red snakeskin pumps from cato? yes please. bright green pointy-toe heels? i'll take those too. win #2 and #3.
but by far my greatest find was a pair of shoes for jp:
1 cup all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of cinnamon
i told e that i was going to win the lottery this week because that's the only logical way to offset what a horrible past week we all had.
so far i think i'm off to the right start.
i've stashed away a small amount of cash (really small... like $25 small) from things i've sold on craigslist and change from e's pockets and today i decided i really wanted to hit up a thrift store to see if i could find some good prints to use to turn into other things.
let's face it, most of the things at really cheap thrift stores cannot be salvaged in their current forms.
it turned out that goodwill was open until 6! SWEET! win #1.
so i drove out. the prices were a bit disappointing-- $2 for all tanks, $4.50 for all pants. i know that's still cheap, but it's not nearly as cheap as i've seen in other places. and all baby clothes were $2. that's way too much for me.
however, the shoes were right up my alley. $4 for a pair of deep red snakeskin pumps from cato? yes please. bright green pointy-toe heels? i'll take those too. win #2 and #3.
but by far my greatest find was a pair of shoes for jp:
classic reeboks. in awesome condition. for $3. they're a size 9 so they'll fit him sometime 6 months from now or later. win #4.
and then the night got BETTER.
"blaspheme" you say. "it could not improve past $3 classic reeboks in child's size 9".
oh my good friend, how wrong you are.
i've been jonesing for a good coffee cupcake. don't ask me how i can crave something i've never had. apparently it's possible. i googled recipes and found one here that i liked, but i felt like there wasn't enough coffee. so i modified it and made what i am dubbing "double coffee cupcakes".
double coffee cupcakes
1 cup all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of cinnamon
pinch of salt1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine
4 eggs
1/2 cup butter or margarine
4 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tablespoons instant coffee dissolved in 3 tablespoons hot brewed coffee (my brother in law is a barista. win #4.5)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tablespoons instant coffee dissolved in 3 tablespoons hot brewed coffee (my brother in law is a barista. win #4.5)
sift together flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.
beat butter and sugar until smooth
beat butter and sugar until smooth
add eggs, vegetable oil and vanilla extract and continue to stir until creamy
add dry ingredients, stir until just mixed
add coffee
bake at 350 until golden brown, about 15 minutes or so
add dry ingredients, stir until just mixed
add coffee
bake at 350 until golden brown, about 15 minutes or so
top with italian creme frosting
WAIT!!! italian creme frosting!?! WHERE DID THAT COME FROM!? I DON'T KNOW WHERE TO BUY THAT OR HOW TO MAKE IT!!!! WHY WOULD YOU TEMPT ME SO!?!!!???!
oh, rest easy loved one. i shall save you.
italian creme frosting
1 stick butter, softened
2 tbsp italian creme powdered coffee creamer
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 c powdered sugar
In a large bowl, beat the butter, creamer and extract until smooth.
2 tbsp italian creme powdered coffee creamer
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 c powdered sugar
In a large bowl, beat the butter, creamer and extract until smooth.
slowly beat in powdered sugar.
if you want your frosting a bit thinner, add a tiny bit of water until it's the consistency you want.
store in the refrigerator for up to 3 months (that's a joke. you'll never make it 3 months. it'll be gone by tomorrow morning)
win #5.
04 June, 2011
So, What Happened Was...
i have developed hypoglycemia, either in this pregnancy, or at some other time, and i just never knew.
my blood sugar was dangerously low tuesday night, and then we ate dinner and the sudden rise caused my body to go into a sort of shock, causing a seizure. it's not at all unheard of with hypoglycemia.
the problem is that we didn't find out about it until 2 days after it happened. in a routine glucose test usually done around the 26 week mark for pregnant women. my blood sugar at the time of the test was 42. that would cause a great many people to lose consciousness.
because our insurance company waited until the very last moment to complete our intake information every single step of the way, i was 2 weeks behind on taking my glucose test.
and because i'm pregnant, when i have complained of being light headed or dizzy, it has been immediately explained away. which is understandable, except i have also had a high heart rate and low blood pressure. hypoglycemia isn't rare. especially in pregnancy. at any time it would have been more than reasonable for a nurse or doctor to suggest that when i feel faint, i should sit down and maybe try to drink some juice and eat some cheese to see if that helps. but instead the advice was always the same: sit down and have some water, it will clear up. it's nothing to be worried about.
so tuesday evening, when i got into an after-dinner bath to relax and began to feel light headed, i did exactly as i've been told: i laid back, shut my eyes, took some deep breaths, and waited for it to pass.
but it didn't. instead i ended up in the hospital for 24 hours submitted to a battery of tests: eeg, ekg, mri, blood work, labs, 2 ultrasounds, 2 IVs, 3 blood draws and constant overnight monitoring of myself and the baby. e missed 2 days of work and i faced my first morning of not being home when jp woke up. at the end of it all, no real explanation could be given and i was given medical orders to not drive for 6 months and to not bathe, swim, or shower without adult supervision.
we called in favors that we had no right to ask for from people who owe us nothing. people we barely know. i recovered physically and my mind began to absorb the reality that i had no idea if this could happen again. i didn't know how to prevent it. i didn't know what caused it. i wasn't even sure i knew what it was.
and then a simple, routine test gave us the answers to everything. a test that came 3 days too late because a company allows itself to get so overwhelmed that it pushes its clients to the limits. because nurses and doctors fall into a mechanical pattern and stop really paying attention to the people instead of their charts.
i would gladly take some responsibility in all of this if i knew how i could. i'm not a trained medical professional. blood sugar levels weren't a part of my arsenal of life knowledge. i could google my symptoms, but heaven knows where that would lead me.
i listed my symptoms at least a half a dozen times. i tried to be adamant in explaining that 20 minutes of standing on my feet didn't seem like a reasonable amount of time to make me that light headed, that this didn't happen to me in my last pregnancy. i asked the insurance company to please try to rush my assignment to a doctor because i needed a referral to an OB so i could get back on track. when i got my assignment, i asked the doctor giving the referral to please hurry it along because i was getting behind on labs and appointments.
nobody listened. they've all heard it 100 times before. "i need to see a doctor now because of ____", "but MY case is truly important". i never claimed to be important. i just wanted to be seen on the timeline that every tricare beneficiary is supposed to be seen on.
and had i been seen on said timeline, we could have avoided the emotional and physical pain and the fear that we were subjected to as a family for 60 petrifying hours.
make no mistake, i am grateful for medical care. i'm grateful for insurance, for not having to pay out of pocket for these expenses. i am not grateful to have had a seizure because someone couldn't have pushed paperwork through a day or two faster. 27 days of red tape for a person to see a doctor is ridiculous. it's one thing to wait 4 weeks for an open appointment (though that it also frustrating). but when there are slots available that you cannot have because someone hasn't scanned something or something just hasn't been mailed or faxed yet, when papers are sitting in a bin... and when those waiting papers translate into what they did for my family, and for me...
what happened was unnecessary. and insofar as i have a say, it won't ever happen again.
but i wish i could say the same for everyone dealing with this healthcare system.
my blood sugar was dangerously low tuesday night, and then we ate dinner and the sudden rise caused my body to go into a sort of shock, causing a seizure. it's not at all unheard of with hypoglycemia.
the problem is that we didn't find out about it until 2 days after it happened. in a routine glucose test usually done around the 26 week mark for pregnant women. my blood sugar at the time of the test was 42. that would cause a great many people to lose consciousness.
because our insurance company waited until the very last moment to complete our intake information every single step of the way, i was 2 weeks behind on taking my glucose test.
and because i'm pregnant, when i have complained of being light headed or dizzy, it has been immediately explained away. which is understandable, except i have also had a high heart rate and low blood pressure. hypoglycemia isn't rare. especially in pregnancy. at any time it would have been more than reasonable for a nurse or doctor to suggest that when i feel faint, i should sit down and maybe try to drink some juice and eat some cheese to see if that helps. but instead the advice was always the same: sit down and have some water, it will clear up. it's nothing to be worried about.
so tuesday evening, when i got into an after-dinner bath to relax and began to feel light headed, i did exactly as i've been told: i laid back, shut my eyes, took some deep breaths, and waited for it to pass.
but it didn't. instead i ended up in the hospital for 24 hours submitted to a battery of tests: eeg, ekg, mri, blood work, labs, 2 ultrasounds, 2 IVs, 3 blood draws and constant overnight monitoring of myself and the baby. e missed 2 days of work and i faced my first morning of not being home when jp woke up. at the end of it all, no real explanation could be given and i was given medical orders to not drive for 6 months and to not bathe, swim, or shower without adult supervision.
we called in favors that we had no right to ask for from people who owe us nothing. people we barely know. i recovered physically and my mind began to absorb the reality that i had no idea if this could happen again. i didn't know how to prevent it. i didn't know what caused it. i wasn't even sure i knew what it was.
and then a simple, routine test gave us the answers to everything. a test that came 3 days too late because a company allows itself to get so overwhelmed that it pushes its clients to the limits. because nurses and doctors fall into a mechanical pattern and stop really paying attention to the people instead of their charts.
i would gladly take some responsibility in all of this if i knew how i could. i'm not a trained medical professional. blood sugar levels weren't a part of my arsenal of life knowledge. i could google my symptoms, but heaven knows where that would lead me.
i listed my symptoms at least a half a dozen times. i tried to be adamant in explaining that 20 minutes of standing on my feet didn't seem like a reasonable amount of time to make me that light headed, that this didn't happen to me in my last pregnancy. i asked the insurance company to please try to rush my assignment to a doctor because i needed a referral to an OB so i could get back on track. when i got my assignment, i asked the doctor giving the referral to please hurry it along because i was getting behind on labs and appointments.
nobody listened. they've all heard it 100 times before. "i need to see a doctor now because of ____", "but MY case is truly important". i never claimed to be important. i just wanted to be seen on the timeline that every tricare beneficiary is supposed to be seen on.
and had i been seen on said timeline, we could have avoided the emotional and physical pain and the fear that we were subjected to as a family for 60 petrifying hours.
make no mistake, i am grateful for medical care. i'm grateful for insurance, for not having to pay out of pocket for these expenses. i am not grateful to have had a seizure because someone couldn't have pushed paperwork through a day or two faster. 27 days of red tape for a person to see a doctor is ridiculous. it's one thing to wait 4 weeks for an open appointment (though that it also frustrating). but when there are slots available that you cannot have because someone hasn't scanned something or something just hasn't been mailed or faxed yet, when papers are sitting in a bin... and when those waiting papers translate into what they did for my family, and for me...
what happened was unnecessary. and insofar as i have a say, it won't ever happen again.
but i wish i could say the same for everyone dealing with this healthcare system.
02 June, 2011
Who I Am
i haven't always been the self-assured person that i appear to be now. i faced those hard years creating my own self-identity throughout my teens and into my early 20s with very little grace or direction. i'm still trying to figure myself out, as most people are.
this week we had quite a scare. i won't go into details, but something happened to my body that required an overnight hospital stay along with a battery of neurological tests. thankfully, the scariest possibilities (stroke, tumor, or epilepsy) were ruled out and the baby in my belly was entirely unaffected. we even got a wicked 3d ultrasound picture of him:
pretty cute lil dude, don't you think?
anyhow, as i waited 24 hours for results, i had plenty of time for fears and concerns to mount. and mount they did.
the fear of not knowing what happened, and conversely, the fear that came with knowing what little i did, the fear of it happening again, being alone in the hospital (e was at home with jp, where he needed to be), fear that the baby was affected, fear that it could have been my fault, that i had frightened my child, that i didn't know how long i'd be in the hospital or if i could stay pregnant. i'm sure you can think of a few more on your own.
but oddly, the scariest thought in my mind was what would happen if a test came back showing a history of seizures, proving that i had epilepsy. it certainly didn't seem likely that i would have missed such an important recurring event in my life, but stranger things have happened, right?
i thought about how much that could change my life, my daily routine, the implications for my two boys and any children we might want in the future. how it could affect e, his job, his ability to deploy, the place that we live.
but the most consuming fear was medication. i don't like medication at all and tend to avoid it in favor of pain and discomfort. i think it's wise to embrace your symptoms and listen to your body, and life experience tells me that most medications treat conditions that are temporary anyway. obviously there are conditions which necessitate medicine--sometimes many medications-- and i don't judge anybody for using medication. for me it's simply a personal preference. i have no chronic health conditions and thus no need for chronic treatment.
seizure medication is designed to treat your brain, to treat it. to alter it. for the better, of course, but alteration is alteration regardless of the emotional repercussions.
what would happen to my personality? would the change be significant? would e feel like he was married to the same person? would i?
i'm only 25 and i feel like i've already fought so many battles to settle into my skin. i'm not prepared to lose ground, to accept a change that i have no control over in order to function. it's one thing to choose a drastic life change, but to have it thrust upon you in pill form...
i take a lot of comfort in the realization that changing my personality frightens me. that means i must like myself. or at least be satisfied with who i am right now.
and thankfully, i don't have to face that possibility right now. hopefully not ever.
this week we had quite a scare. i won't go into details, but something happened to my body that required an overnight hospital stay along with a battery of neurological tests. thankfully, the scariest possibilities (stroke, tumor, or epilepsy) were ruled out and the baby in my belly was entirely unaffected. we even got a wicked 3d ultrasound picture of him:
pretty cute lil dude, don't you think?
anyhow, as i waited 24 hours for results, i had plenty of time for fears and concerns to mount. and mount they did.
the fear of not knowing what happened, and conversely, the fear that came with knowing what little i did, the fear of it happening again, being alone in the hospital (e was at home with jp, where he needed to be), fear that the baby was affected, fear that it could have been my fault, that i had frightened my child, that i didn't know how long i'd be in the hospital or if i could stay pregnant. i'm sure you can think of a few more on your own.
but oddly, the scariest thought in my mind was what would happen if a test came back showing a history of seizures, proving that i had epilepsy. it certainly didn't seem likely that i would have missed such an important recurring event in my life, but stranger things have happened, right?
i thought about how much that could change my life, my daily routine, the implications for my two boys and any children we might want in the future. how it could affect e, his job, his ability to deploy, the place that we live.
but the most consuming fear was medication. i don't like medication at all and tend to avoid it in favor of pain and discomfort. i think it's wise to embrace your symptoms and listen to your body, and life experience tells me that most medications treat conditions that are temporary anyway. obviously there are conditions which necessitate medicine--sometimes many medications-- and i don't judge anybody for using medication. for me it's simply a personal preference. i have no chronic health conditions and thus no need for chronic treatment.
seizure medication is designed to treat your brain, to treat it. to alter it. for the better, of course, but alteration is alteration regardless of the emotional repercussions.
what would happen to my personality? would the change be significant? would e feel like he was married to the same person? would i?
i'm only 25 and i feel like i've already fought so many battles to settle into my skin. i'm not prepared to lose ground, to accept a change that i have no control over in order to function. it's one thing to choose a drastic life change, but to have it thrust upon you in pill form...
i take a lot of comfort in the realization that changing my personality frightens me. that means i must like myself. or at least be satisfied with who i am right now.
and thankfully, i don't have to face that possibility right now. hopefully not ever.
29 May, 2011
Productively Lazy
i feel that phrase adequately covers what the last few days have been like around here. i get a few things done and then i'm zonked out on the couch with the dog.
it's a good life :)
we've been slightly better about getting things accomplished this weekend (by us, i mean my husband) and i figured i should write another blog before i start taking 2 naps a day.
the second bathroom is almost done- we're waiting on a fun fishing themed border to arrive and then it's just a matter of decorating! the yard has a great base now. next year is when i think we'll really see the fruits of our labor, but everything is in place and, from what i can tell, alive. we have yet to find a paint color for our bathroom, but we have plenty of time for that and it's a very small space to have to paint. there are still boxes that we haven't unpacked, but that's ok with me. we know more or less what's in all of them and i'm in no rush.
for the first time in our marriage we have an abundance of decorations on the walls. moving every few months really takes the wind out of your sails when it comes to making a house feel like a home. but we're not moving in a few months!! we're staying put for a while! so i've gone a little picture-hanging crazy. i'm loving the effect.
we're all settling into a routine of sorts. i'm moving to bi-weekly appointments from here on out with my OB--i really think that's going to make time fly. we're also hoping to enroll the puppy into some training courses before baby calvin makes his debut which will be another great time filler! but in general, life seems to be relaxing for us, slowing down to match the pace out here in the country :) i'm a fan.
it's a good life :)
we've been slightly better about getting things accomplished this weekend (by us, i mean my husband) and i figured i should write another blog before i start taking 2 naps a day.
the second bathroom is almost done- we're waiting on a fun fishing themed border to arrive and then it's just a matter of decorating! the yard has a great base now. next year is when i think we'll really see the fruits of our labor, but everything is in place and, from what i can tell, alive. we have yet to find a paint color for our bathroom, but we have plenty of time for that and it's a very small space to have to paint. there are still boxes that we haven't unpacked, but that's ok with me. we know more or less what's in all of them and i'm in no rush.
for the first time in our marriage we have an abundance of decorations on the walls. moving every few months really takes the wind out of your sails when it comes to making a house feel like a home. but we're not moving in a few months!! we're staying put for a while! so i've gone a little picture-hanging crazy. i'm loving the effect.
we're all settling into a routine of sorts. i'm moving to bi-weekly appointments from here on out with my OB--i really think that's going to make time fly. we're also hoping to enroll the puppy into some training courses before baby calvin makes his debut which will be another great time filler! but in general, life seems to be relaxing for us, slowing down to match the pace out here in the country :) i'm a fan.
25 May, 2011
Life
as a follow up to a heavy post, here are some of the thing that make my life beautiful, in no particular order:
two of my men
fresh fruit from the trees in our backyard
boy. dog. pool. summer.
hose rain showers
homemade jam from fruit picked ripe from the branches
spread on a piece of homemade buttermilk bread, sizzled in butter
roses from our front yard
love.
23 May, 2011
Death
such a loaded word, with varying degrees of weight for so many.
this will not be an upbeat post. it will likely not end on a positive note. i'm hoping to find some relief in putting pen to paper, so to speak.
to my immediate family: do not read this. it will likely make your day horrible and your night much worse. i do not want that for you.
my weekend started off rocky for no particular reason. it's a combination of hormones, a growing inability to sleep from heartburn and general discomfort, exhaustion from what seems like a thousand sources, and various other normally benign irritants.
e was a gem for the majority of the weekend. we bought a pool to help jp's leg finish healing (his cast came off on thursday, which i meant to post about on friday, but the day was just busy and then the weekend slump hit) and to alleviate some of my discomfort from the pregnancy. cheaper than driving into town and paying for a pool pass!
after the third trip out that day, to buy a pump to blow up the outer rim of the pool, e came back and discovered that the pump he bought was actually meant for a cigarette lighter, not an electrical outlet. foolishly, and not without realizing what the consequences may be, we pulled our car around back and settled for using the pump intermittently to begin the process.
and yes, it killed the car battery, just as we suspected it would. and thus began the insane downhill descent of my day on sunday.
i was tired and irritable and we were waiting for the neighbors to come home to get a jump. we puttered around the house, i was scornful, and i tried very hard to pull myself out of the funk that i realized i was unnecessarily falling into.
in the early afternoon one of e's friends here called to see if we'd like some company that night from him and his wife. they could also jump our car when they came. perfect! we get to cleaning and i manage to remember that we have enough ingredients to make a pretty good homemade pizza (Since we can't run to the store to get burgers or anything because the car is dead) and a side salad.
i realize the hamster cage smells awful. i've fallen behind on cleaning it.
long story short, another short-sighted action on my part ended with e and i desperately trying to save two hamsters who were dying too slowly from heat stroke. one went within 10 minutes. it took the other nearly an hour. i held the second one as she went. i cried off and on all evening. those hamsters were my valentine's day gift from my husband this year, a sort of promise ring of pets, if you will. they were meant to satisfy my need for something furry until we could get a dog. and i killed them. make no mistake, i was in fact directly responsible. by no means was it deliberate, but that doesn't make it hurt any less.
the only saving grace in all of this was actually yet another failure (though this one unknown) on my part. our guest's wife is highly allergic to olive oil. when they found out we were making homemade pizza, which contains olive oil, dinner was cancelled.
i didn't have to put on a brave face.
death is not easy for anyone to handle. i know a good number of people who would cry watching someone else's hamster die, or who would cry even if the small creatures weren't a precious gift from a thoughtful spouse.
but the hamsters are not the first thing i've watched die before my eyes. the first thing i watched die before my eyes was my brother. this is not an exaggeration or a twisting of truths. i don't mean that i sat in a hospital room and watched an ill boy end a long fight with a terminal illness, or that i arrived on scene to find him being carried away by a stretcher (though that did happen) and learned of his death from a cold room and a strange nurse.
to my parents and sister, if you are still reading for any reason, please stop now.
no, i was in the room with him and my parents, hooked up to wires and tubes, watching his heart beat in perfect sync with the hands pumping it through his chest, blood streaming out of his ears and nose. unresponsive. from an accident at a water park caused by a slew of arrogant, selfish people and a chain of events spanning over 20 years of irresponsibility and thousands of years of acceptance of bullying. an accident caused by the ignorance of youth that makes teenagers believe they are invincible.
so when i watch these two precious gifts from my wonderful husband shake and quiver into death, my mind is not in the kitchen where the first one passed away or on my bed where the second went to sleep on my chest. my mind is in a hospital room watching them remove tubes from my brother, hearing them call time of death.
and i am now useless. i can't sleep but i have no desire to be awake. i try to force myself into some mundane tasks to no avail.
i am going to be incapacitated for a few days, at least. and i accept that. it's healthy to allow yourself a mental breakdown every now and then.
the reason for this blog is that i really have nowhere to turn. i'm certainly not going to call my parents and stir the horrible memories for them over a set of hamsters. e is now back at work full time and by the time he gets home i know i will be too tired to relay any of this on to him. i'm not comfortable putting this story or these emotions out on a specific person. i'm too much in a funk to call people, and honestly, to answer my phone if someone calls me. i know i'll pull out of this in a few days. a year and a half of therapy gives you wonderful tools.
so i'll spill it out here. it's a non-confrontational way to express some pain without forcing anybody to feel it alongside me. you can choose to read or not. i sincerely hope you chose not. but if you made it to this line, it means you chose to read. and it means you know me just a little bit better, how i tick, one of my weaknesses.
and if you've made it this far, i just want to say to you that i hope with all of my heart that you don't have a memory worse than watching your pets die at your own hand, even if they're tiny, frail hamsters who i have been reassured die if you look at them funny (though i know better than to believe that's entirely true). i hope that if you have to watch something like what happened to me on sunday, that it has no other horrible memory to trigger.
and if you have lived a nightmare, i wish for you that you never have to see something that triggers it as deeply and painfully as wembley and fizzgig did for me. i hope you are given exponentially larger amounts of joy than the sorrow you have already been given.
this will not be an upbeat post. it will likely not end on a positive note. i'm hoping to find some relief in putting pen to paper, so to speak.
to my immediate family: do not read this. it will likely make your day horrible and your night much worse. i do not want that for you.
my weekend started off rocky for no particular reason. it's a combination of hormones, a growing inability to sleep from heartburn and general discomfort, exhaustion from what seems like a thousand sources, and various other normally benign irritants.
e was a gem for the majority of the weekend. we bought a pool to help jp's leg finish healing (his cast came off on thursday, which i meant to post about on friday, but the day was just busy and then the weekend slump hit) and to alleviate some of my discomfort from the pregnancy. cheaper than driving into town and paying for a pool pass!
after the third trip out that day, to buy a pump to blow up the outer rim of the pool, e came back and discovered that the pump he bought was actually meant for a cigarette lighter, not an electrical outlet. foolishly, and not without realizing what the consequences may be, we pulled our car around back and settled for using the pump intermittently to begin the process.
and yes, it killed the car battery, just as we suspected it would. and thus began the insane downhill descent of my day on sunday.
i was tired and irritable and we were waiting for the neighbors to come home to get a jump. we puttered around the house, i was scornful, and i tried very hard to pull myself out of the funk that i realized i was unnecessarily falling into.
in the early afternoon one of e's friends here called to see if we'd like some company that night from him and his wife. they could also jump our car when they came. perfect! we get to cleaning and i manage to remember that we have enough ingredients to make a pretty good homemade pizza (Since we can't run to the store to get burgers or anything because the car is dead) and a side salad.
i realize the hamster cage smells awful. i've fallen behind on cleaning it.
long story short, another short-sighted action on my part ended with e and i desperately trying to save two hamsters who were dying too slowly from heat stroke. one went within 10 minutes. it took the other nearly an hour. i held the second one as she went. i cried off and on all evening. those hamsters were my valentine's day gift from my husband this year, a sort of promise ring of pets, if you will. they were meant to satisfy my need for something furry until we could get a dog. and i killed them. make no mistake, i was in fact directly responsible. by no means was it deliberate, but that doesn't make it hurt any less.
the only saving grace in all of this was actually yet another failure (though this one unknown) on my part. our guest's wife is highly allergic to olive oil. when they found out we were making homemade pizza, which contains olive oil, dinner was cancelled.
i didn't have to put on a brave face.
death is not easy for anyone to handle. i know a good number of people who would cry watching someone else's hamster die, or who would cry even if the small creatures weren't a precious gift from a thoughtful spouse.
but the hamsters are not the first thing i've watched die before my eyes. the first thing i watched die before my eyes was my brother. this is not an exaggeration or a twisting of truths. i don't mean that i sat in a hospital room and watched an ill boy end a long fight with a terminal illness, or that i arrived on scene to find him being carried away by a stretcher (though that did happen) and learned of his death from a cold room and a strange nurse.
to my parents and sister, if you are still reading for any reason, please stop now.
no, i was in the room with him and my parents, hooked up to wires and tubes, watching his heart beat in perfect sync with the hands pumping it through his chest, blood streaming out of his ears and nose. unresponsive. from an accident at a water park caused by a slew of arrogant, selfish people and a chain of events spanning over 20 years of irresponsibility and thousands of years of acceptance of bullying. an accident caused by the ignorance of youth that makes teenagers believe they are invincible.
so when i watch these two precious gifts from my wonderful husband shake and quiver into death, my mind is not in the kitchen where the first one passed away or on my bed where the second went to sleep on my chest. my mind is in a hospital room watching them remove tubes from my brother, hearing them call time of death.
and i am now useless. i can't sleep but i have no desire to be awake. i try to force myself into some mundane tasks to no avail.
i am going to be incapacitated for a few days, at least. and i accept that. it's healthy to allow yourself a mental breakdown every now and then.
the reason for this blog is that i really have nowhere to turn. i'm certainly not going to call my parents and stir the horrible memories for them over a set of hamsters. e is now back at work full time and by the time he gets home i know i will be too tired to relay any of this on to him. i'm not comfortable putting this story or these emotions out on a specific person. i'm too much in a funk to call people, and honestly, to answer my phone if someone calls me. i know i'll pull out of this in a few days. a year and a half of therapy gives you wonderful tools.
so i'll spill it out here. it's a non-confrontational way to express some pain without forcing anybody to feel it alongside me. you can choose to read or not. i sincerely hope you chose not. but if you made it to this line, it means you chose to read. and it means you know me just a little bit better, how i tick, one of my weaknesses.
and if you've made it this far, i just want to say to you that i hope with all of my heart that you don't have a memory worse than watching your pets die at your own hand, even if they're tiny, frail hamsters who i have been reassured die if you look at them funny (though i know better than to believe that's entirely true). i hope that if you have to watch something like what happened to me on sunday, that it has no other horrible memory to trigger.
and if you have lived a nightmare, i wish for you that you never have to see something that triggers it as deeply and painfully as wembley and fizzgig did for me. i hope you are given exponentially larger amounts of joy than the sorrow you have already been given.
19 May, 2011
PROJECT!
I ACTUALLY DID A PROJECT AND DOCUMENTED IT!!! honestly, i've done many projects the last 2 weeks, but this one was just neat for me.
i've been bugging e about getting myself a sewing machine. we've scoured ebay, amazon, craigslist and garage sales to find something reasonably priced that still works. i'm not a designer or pro by any means, but i love making our old t-shirts into cool vintage shirts for jp and converting random scraps of material into other random things. we borrowed a friend's sewing machine for a few weeks to get some projects done and i was really itching for something of my own.
i don't need a super fancy/expensive machine. really, i could do just fine with a gadget that sews straight lines in a forward and reverse motion. but i don't want hello kitty stamps all over it.
after a long while of not-so-intense searching, we found this at the bx in florida. it seemed like it would be a GREAT fit for me and it was $40. that, a fake set of wedding rings for my shrinking (yes, shrinking) fingers, and a new wallet rounded out my mother's day gifts.
i broke out my little sewing machine tonight after reading through some of the reviews online and decided to give it a whirl.
first, let me say that i was impressed with all the loot that came with the machine:
i have a few extra pieces of material from 2 cotton twin sized sheets that were given to us (despite us not owning a twin sized bed !) and i decided to make a cover for my new buddy.
i was pretty pleasantly surprised. the stitches are even and straight.
i'm really happy with the results. REALLY happy.
this machine is by no means meant to be a workhorse-- i think i could easily get away with using it lightly every day, but we're not talking about the stuff of designers here. i also think really heavy or really thin fabrics might not fare too well based on the reviews and the way it runs. but for general, every day hemming, drape making, simple pattern making, this is a fabulous little contraption.
it is VERY small- the dimensions of the cover are 10"h x 12"w x 5"d. tiny tiny. but that's also great for me. it's not taking up a ton of room and it's getting the job done. perfect for my life!
i love that it came with tons of bobbins and thread options. i also love that it has a few different, but uncomplicated, stitch options. it has a work light (that flickers when you use the pedal, which i kind of found endearing) and you can set it to stitch automatically for those times when you have one really long line to sew and don't want to use the pedal.
there are 2 downsides to this machine that i have found in my one night of working on it.
1. it doesn't sew super fast. however, i know that will work in my favor as i use it more often than it will work against me. like i said, i make lots of mistakes, so i'll have a bit of an easier time controlling my stitching when i'm not accidentally causing the machine to sew at warp speed.
2. it's loud. no sewing machine is really quiet, but this one definitely isn't trying to claim to be :) i don't mind that so much, but another person might. and i wonder if putting some sort of padding under it would help absorb some of the sound of the machine v. its wooden table.
overall, i'm really excited about our future projects and all the great straight lines i'm going to be able to sew with this thing! i just need to give it a name :)
i've been bugging e about getting myself a sewing machine. we've scoured ebay, amazon, craigslist and garage sales to find something reasonably priced that still works. i'm not a designer or pro by any means, but i love making our old t-shirts into cool vintage shirts for jp and converting random scraps of material into other random things. we borrowed a friend's sewing machine for a few weeks to get some projects done and i was really itching for something of my own.
i don't need a super fancy/expensive machine. really, i could do just fine with a gadget that sews straight lines in a forward and reverse motion. but i don't want hello kitty stamps all over it.
after a long while of not-so-intense searching, we found this at the bx in florida. it seemed like it would be a GREAT fit for me and it was $40. that, a fake set of wedding rings for my shrinking (yes, shrinking) fingers, and a new wallet rounded out my mother's day gifts.
i broke out my little sewing machine tonight after reading through some of the reviews online and decided to give it a whirl.
first, let me say that i was impressed with all the loot that came with the machine:
all the colors! all the options! all the sharp objects! the only thing it didn't come with was pins, which is fine because i have a ton. it comes pre-threaded with a sample square that shows you all of the stitch options and i used a marker to label which knob controlled what so that i wouldn't accidentally turn the wrong one trying to make a quick adjustment (remember, i'm no expert seamstress. i make dumb mistakes a lot)
i have a few extra pieces of material from 2 cotton twin sized sheets that were given to us (despite us not owning a twin sized bed !) and i decided to make a cover for my new buddy.
i was pretty pleasantly surprised. the stitches are even and straight.
on a whim i used one of the programmed stitch patterns for the hem, and i think it makes the cover just a little more fun and cheery:
i'm really happy with the results. REALLY happy.
this machine is by no means meant to be a workhorse-- i think i could easily get away with using it lightly every day, but we're not talking about the stuff of designers here. i also think really heavy or really thin fabrics might not fare too well based on the reviews and the way it runs. but for general, every day hemming, drape making, simple pattern making, this is a fabulous little contraption.
it is VERY small- the dimensions of the cover are 10"h x 12"w x 5"d. tiny tiny. but that's also great for me. it's not taking up a ton of room and it's getting the job done. perfect for my life!
i love that it came with tons of bobbins and thread options. i also love that it has a few different, but uncomplicated, stitch options. it has a work light (that flickers when you use the pedal, which i kind of found endearing) and you can set it to stitch automatically for those times when you have one really long line to sew and don't want to use the pedal.
there are 2 downsides to this machine that i have found in my one night of working on it.
1. it doesn't sew super fast. however, i know that will work in my favor as i use it more often than it will work against me. like i said, i make lots of mistakes, so i'll have a bit of an easier time controlling my stitching when i'm not accidentally causing the machine to sew at warp speed.
2. it's loud. no sewing machine is really quiet, but this one definitely isn't trying to claim to be :) i don't mind that so much, but another person might. and i wonder if putting some sort of padding under it would help absorb some of the sound of the machine v. its wooden table.
overall, i'm really excited about our future projects and all the great straight lines i'm going to be able to sew with this thing! i just need to give it a name :)
18 May, 2011
Crayons
if you had come to my college dorm room 6 years ago, you would have:
1. been amazed and disgusted with how messy and disorganized i am
2. declared my roommate a saint (she in fact is)
3. somewhere in all of the clutter found a collection of crayons, markers, colored pencils, pastels and paints that a toddler would consider the biggest jackpot in all of the world. and all of those coloring tools would have been faced and ordered by color.
i'm not sure why, but i've always held an extreme reverence for crayons and colored pencils. despite my inability to keep any part of my life clean and orderly, my coloring supplies have always been kept neatly in their original boxes, sharpened and lined up like a rainbow. i hold these tools in the highest regard and if you were to go through my collection of art supplies, you would find the same tools that i've had for nearly a decade. and you would think some had never been opened or were purchased in the last year or two.
i'm not really sure what causes my odd affection for simple sticks of pigment. perhaps it's the nostalgia i feel for my childhood. perhaps it's a love for the arts and those things are the arts in some of its most basic forms. i really have no idea.
i rarely use them. they're too precious to waste in my mind.
but something even more precious to me exists now. something that can trump even my adoration for my crayons.
my son.
so i let him use my precious coloring utensils.
1. been amazed and disgusted with how messy and disorganized i am
2. declared my roommate a saint (she in fact is)
3. somewhere in all of the clutter found a collection of crayons, markers, colored pencils, pastels and paints that a toddler would consider the biggest jackpot in all of the world. and all of those coloring tools would have been faced and ordered by color.
i'm not sure why, but i've always held an extreme reverence for crayons and colored pencils. despite my inability to keep any part of my life clean and orderly, my coloring supplies have always been kept neatly in their original boxes, sharpened and lined up like a rainbow. i hold these tools in the highest regard and if you were to go through my collection of art supplies, you would find the same tools that i've had for nearly a decade. and you would think some had never been opened or were purchased in the last year or two.
i'm not really sure what causes my odd affection for simple sticks of pigment. perhaps it's the nostalgia i feel for my childhood. perhaps it's a love for the arts and those things are the arts in some of its most basic forms. i really have no idea.
i rarely use them. they're too precious to waste in my mind.
but something even more precious to me exists now. something that can trump even my adoration for my crayons.
my son.
so i let him use my precious coloring utensils.
he prefers pencils.
eventually, however, he discovered the joy of taking crayons out of the box, putting them back in, and shutting the lid. what a wondrous ability to discover! i can open something, take things out, put them back, and shut it! again and again!
but he cannot remember where the crayon came from. the simple solution here is to force the crayon into a new home.
suddenly my crayons are breaking into halves and thirds. the dog ate two. i can feel anxiety building.
my once perfect, magical wax wands now look like this:
i would be lying if i sat here and typed that my love for my son overshadowed all of the pain i feel at watching my antiques slowly meet their demise. i wince when i look at this box. it sounds silly. i know it does.
but after my quick grimace, i look at my little boy and i smile. and i hang his drawings on our refrigerator, file them away in the rubbermaid designated for the memories he's creating, and i marvel at how amazing he is. one short year ago, if i had given him a box of crayons, i would have gotten every single one back--in his diaper. now he can open the box, pick out a specific color, use it to draw on a piece of paper, put it back where it goes, and shut the lid. that's pretty impressive. i would say that kind of skill is worth every box of crayons we have to replace. it's worth every moment i spent caring for my crayons, pencils, markers, paints, and any other art supply he ends up using.
and i won't lose those things. not a single one. they will transform into scribbles, stick figures and shaky letters on scraps of paper over the years. they will become more than they could ever been in my flimsy hands.
a box of crayons.
who would ever have thought...
16 May, 2011
Frankly, My Dear...
i grew up in illinois. i was born there and if you ask me where i'm from, that's the state i'm giving you. but my family moved to texas at the end of my 7th grade year and i stayed there through college-- a total of 9 years. i also lived in louisiana for 9 months at the beginning of my marriage. i was a newspaper reporter there, so you could say i have some experience with the south. or at least part of it.
georgia was neither the top nor the bottom of the list of places i wanted e to get stationed at. because of the vast culture differences and my general against-the-tide personality, my feelings toward southern living aren't what you might call positive. or forgiving. the first few days here really tested me.
it's common practice down south to give directions by landmarks. which is great if you know the area's architecture and shrubbery like the back of your hand. but when your gps doesn't register half of the roads in your area (including your own home address), it's imperative that the woman answering phones at the water supplier in town knows the directions to the office so you can go in to get your water turned on because they require you to do that in person. unfortunately, not only did the woman on the phone not know any of the road names or directions to the office from where i was, neither did any of her co-workers. but they could all tell me that i had to turn at the light by the gas station and dollar store and then turn again right before the train tracks. ask me how helpful that is.
not helpful at all.
i began to wonder if my sanity could carry through a minimum of 3 years of this. and i ached a bit for this house that i adore and the realization that if i wasn't able to hold on to my sanity, i would have to sacrifice this home and move yet again. double sigh.
then the strangest thing happened. at the garbage dump.
that's right, the garbage dump. there are no garbage men for our road (possibly our county? i'm not really sure) so we have to haul our own trash. (we're working on buying a truck so that nobody has to put smelly garbage in their car)
i've been to the dump 3 times and was startled today as i realized that i've only seen 2 men there dropping off residential trash. the other dozen-ish dumpers? all women.
i have become very well acquainted with the southern belle-- she's a southerner, so by birthright she's supposedly tough as nails and she talks a lot of game, but she also spends over an hour every morning putting on her makeup, teasing her hair, picking out the right outfit, perfecting her manicure, coordinating her perfume with her deodorant, accessorizing and eating the breakfast that best fits her diet. you'd be surprised to find that in place of dirt and spurs on her cowboy boots, she has rhinestones and bedazzled crosses. she still likes her men in wranglers and knows all about muddin', but that mud better not ever ruin her favorite pair of $120 jeans. in essence, she's a priss with an accent. if you ever picked a fight with her, she would fight dirty, but she would lose.
she wouldn't be caught dead throwing away her trash at a garbage heap. that's what her husband is for.
and that's when it hit me: i'm not in that south anymore. the more i've reflected, the more i can see it: these women are the real southern belles. they keep up with their appearances-- their hair isn't growing wild, they're tan, they have a substantial amount of "church clothes". but that well kept hair is pulled back in a ponytail and those church clothes are reserved for just that. the tan is from the hours they spend every week mowing their yard, doing their own landscaping and gardening, playing outside with their kids... it's from the actual sun. they have several pairs of boots and sneakers that are caked in mud and cracked from age and use. they drive pick up trucks with child seats securely fastened in the back. they haul their own garbage, their own building materials, anything they can carry. if you picked a fight with one of them, your face would likely need reconstruction of some sort. these women aren't proud.
but they should be. i live next door to this woman. i've seen several of them out shopping at home improvement stores and general department stores. i've seen them at the dump. i've seen them on our street.
these women are southerners. they are in fact tough by birthright, but they are also legitimately strong. they are tackling obstacles without flinching. they are facing life without complaining. they are kind and unashamed. they have no reason to put on airs for you.
if i can just learn all these damn landmarks, i think this is the kind of place i could stay for a while. at the very least, these are the kind of people i could stay around.
georgia was neither the top nor the bottom of the list of places i wanted e to get stationed at. because of the vast culture differences and my general against-the-tide personality, my feelings toward southern living aren't what you might call positive. or forgiving. the first few days here really tested me.
it's common practice down south to give directions by landmarks. which is great if you know the area's architecture and shrubbery like the back of your hand. but when your gps doesn't register half of the roads in your area (including your own home address), it's imperative that the woman answering phones at the water supplier in town knows the directions to the office so you can go in to get your water turned on because they require you to do that in person. unfortunately, not only did the woman on the phone not know any of the road names or directions to the office from where i was, neither did any of her co-workers. but they could all tell me that i had to turn at the light by the gas station and dollar store and then turn again right before the train tracks. ask me how helpful that is.
not helpful at all.
i began to wonder if my sanity could carry through a minimum of 3 years of this. and i ached a bit for this house that i adore and the realization that if i wasn't able to hold on to my sanity, i would have to sacrifice this home and move yet again. double sigh.
then the strangest thing happened. at the garbage dump.
that's right, the garbage dump. there are no garbage men for our road (possibly our county? i'm not really sure) so we have to haul our own trash. (we're working on buying a truck so that nobody has to put smelly garbage in their car)
i've been to the dump 3 times and was startled today as i realized that i've only seen 2 men there dropping off residential trash. the other dozen-ish dumpers? all women.
i have become very well acquainted with the southern belle-- she's a southerner, so by birthright she's supposedly tough as nails and she talks a lot of game, but she also spends over an hour every morning putting on her makeup, teasing her hair, picking out the right outfit, perfecting her manicure, coordinating her perfume with her deodorant, accessorizing and eating the breakfast that best fits her diet. you'd be surprised to find that in place of dirt and spurs on her cowboy boots, she has rhinestones and bedazzled crosses. she still likes her men in wranglers and knows all about muddin', but that mud better not ever ruin her favorite pair of $120 jeans. in essence, she's a priss with an accent. if you ever picked a fight with her, she would fight dirty, but she would lose.
she wouldn't be caught dead throwing away her trash at a garbage heap. that's what her husband is for.
and that's when it hit me: i'm not in that south anymore. the more i've reflected, the more i can see it: these women are the real southern belles. they keep up with their appearances-- their hair isn't growing wild, they're tan, they have a substantial amount of "church clothes". but that well kept hair is pulled back in a ponytail and those church clothes are reserved for just that. the tan is from the hours they spend every week mowing their yard, doing their own landscaping and gardening, playing outside with their kids... it's from the actual sun. they have several pairs of boots and sneakers that are caked in mud and cracked from age and use. they drive pick up trucks with child seats securely fastened in the back. they haul their own garbage, their own building materials, anything they can carry. if you picked a fight with one of them, your face would likely need reconstruction of some sort. these women aren't proud.
but they should be. i live next door to this woman. i've seen several of them out shopping at home improvement stores and general department stores. i've seen them at the dump. i've seen them on our street.
these women are southerners. they are in fact tough by birthright, but they are also legitimately strong. they are tackling obstacles without flinching. they are facing life without complaining. they are kind and unashamed. they have no reason to put on airs for you.
if i can just learn all these damn landmarks, i think this is the kind of place i could stay for a while. at the very least, these are the kind of people i could stay around.
13 May, 2011
Busy Busy!
well, e graduated! he's officially a bomb technician! whoa! we're all at the new house now, settling in and doing some home renovations (a fancy way of saying we're caulking and painting lots of stuff haha!). e's brother is in town to help out and spend some time with his favorite JP and i've been a bit preoccupied and haven't had a whole lot of blogging time!
thus far we've begun smoothing out the landscaping around the yard, which includes:
-moving around some really large rocks (as big as your head!) to form a sort of logical outline around part of the yard
-planting my plants! tomatoes, peppers, herbs, fig tree, blackberry bushes, watermelon, okra, corn, and a WHOLE bunch of perennials! we even laid out seeds today! egads!
-pruning, shaping and feeding a peach tree, plum tree, and lots of bushes
-filling a raised bed with wandering jew dug up from all over the yard and some lilies too
-transplanting 3 rose bushes (which may not survive haha!) and a handful of other randomly placed plants to spots that make more sense
-uprooting ten (yes, 10) of the same type of bush that died. we're talking a big heap of sticks stuck in the ground. whatever this plant was, it did NOT like the climate here. and the previous tenants planted 10 of them. what?!
INSIDE the house we have:
-painted the lower half of the kitchen and dining room
-caulked and touched up the baseboards, chair rails, and door frames in the same 2 rooms
-painted the back door
-put up shelves in the laundry room (thanks dad!) and spackled the holes from where the racks once hung at some other time
-sanded, primed and painted the bathroom cabinets in both bathrooms (it was sooooooo needed)
-stripped wallpaper, sanded, and primed the walls of one bathroom (also desperately needed! the wallpaper was scary haha!)
-caulked and repainted the baseboards, doors, and door frames in both bathrooms
our plans for the next few days include:
-planting 5 silver maple trees throughout the yard in various places (they're still baby trees)
-use the last of the rocks to finish the "outline" in the backyard, to separate the wandering jew from the lilies in the raised bed, and to mark off another small bed in the front yard
-finish painting the second bathroom and adding a fun (removable!) border
-possibly building a container for composting out of materials left by the previous tenants
-hopefully finding a color i like for the walls in the master bath
do you see why i haven't been online!? so much to do before baby calvin comes in 3 months and there's so much i'd like to do before e starts a normal work routine and while his brother is here to help! his bro leaves monday, so we have a busy schedule until then! pics will be up once i have before and afters all ready to go!
thus far we've begun smoothing out the landscaping around the yard, which includes:
-moving around some really large rocks (as big as your head!) to form a sort of logical outline around part of the yard
-planting my plants! tomatoes, peppers, herbs, fig tree, blackberry bushes, watermelon, okra, corn, and a WHOLE bunch of perennials! we even laid out seeds today! egads!
-pruning, shaping and feeding a peach tree, plum tree, and lots of bushes
-filling a raised bed with wandering jew dug up from all over the yard and some lilies too
-transplanting 3 rose bushes (which may not survive haha!) and a handful of other randomly placed plants to spots that make more sense
-uprooting ten (yes, 10) of the same type of bush that died. we're talking a big heap of sticks stuck in the ground. whatever this plant was, it did NOT like the climate here. and the previous tenants planted 10 of them. what?!
INSIDE the house we have:
-painted the lower half of the kitchen and dining room
-caulked and touched up the baseboards, chair rails, and door frames in the same 2 rooms
-painted the back door
-put up shelves in the laundry room (thanks dad!) and spackled the holes from where the racks once hung at some other time
-sanded, primed and painted the bathroom cabinets in both bathrooms (it was sooooooo needed)
-stripped wallpaper, sanded, and primed the walls of one bathroom (also desperately needed! the wallpaper was scary haha!)
-caulked and repainted the baseboards, doors, and door frames in both bathrooms
our plans for the next few days include:
-planting 5 silver maple trees throughout the yard in various places (they're still baby trees)
-use the last of the rocks to finish the "outline" in the backyard, to separate the wandering jew from the lilies in the raised bed, and to mark off another small bed in the front yard
-finish painting the second bathroom and adding a fun (removable!) border
-possibly building a container for composting out of materials left by the previous tenants
-hopefully finding a color i like for the walls in the master bath
do you see why i haven't been online!? so much to do before baby calvin comes in 3 months and there's so much i'd like to do before e starts a normal work routine and while his brother is here to help! his bro leaves monday, so we have a busy schedule until then! pics will be up once i have before and afters all ready to go!
04 May, 2011
Move Number Seven
from may may 2008 to present, i have moved from texas to illinois, illinois to maryland, maryland to louisiana, louisiana to colorado, colorado to illinois, illinois to florida and florida to alabama.
we got here on april 29th. i will attempt to keep this blog post relatively short, considering that we moved into our first ever single family home on a giant, beautiful lot, just far enough from the city and just close enough at the same time!
day 1: jp and mommy drove a 26 foot moving truck all by ourselves to our brand new home in alabama. we made it in GREAT time, got the truck to the weigh station, and a friend helped unload the kitchen and immediate need items. i unpacked literally the entire kitchen before going to bed. i also found a scorpion in our house before going to bed. it was no bigger than one of my knuckles, but i could hear him whispering "i'm coming for yooooooooouuuuuuuuuu".
day 2: friends come and unload our entire truck in 3 hours flat. our house looks like it was vomited into. someone asked how we could have so much stuff. unpacking begins and one of the same friends who helped unload the truck came back with his wife to bring us homemade lasagna. it was delicious. commence food coma. friends helped us put together some major furniture and unpack a lot of the living room. not much else was accomplished haha!
day 3: e leaves to go back to florida to finish school :( my parents come into town. jp and mommy go to the giant petsmart adoption weekend to scope out dogs. mommy brings a dog home. let the games begin.
day 4: dog is more active today, but i don't know much about that because jp and i go to the hospital on post to register and get all signed in to the area. now, if you'll recall, jp has a cast on. we have notes in his medical records from florida stating that he needs to get the cast off to check on some blisters that were on his feet--they wanted to make sure the blisters healed and didn't get infected under the cast. it took nearly 3 hours to get registered, plead for a walk in appointment for a referral to orthopedics, go get x-rays, then to the ortho, and then to the room to get the cast off. the cast came off. bad news: he has a pressure blister literally just over the size of a quarter on his heel. his cast had been applied incorrectly for a little boy who would eventually walk on it. it looked horrifying. they cleaned it up, applied antibiotic bandages, cleaned up his other blisters and recasted him with a walking cast. we were gone over 4 hours. he screamed off and on the whole time. i was exhausted. henson, the dog, is in love with me and sleeps next to me on the floor. he also loves jp and jp loves to feed him. i give doggie a rawhide bone. he attacks. he throws it up. awesome.
day 5: parents have done an insane amount of work. dog woke me up at 7:30. that's 6:30 central time. i am sleepy. 5 hours of errand running and utility set up today. back home. dog has separation anxiety. ok, we can deal with that. i call the listed vet to get the info on the dogs heartworm status and find out that dog is actually only 7 months old, not nearly a year like they told us. this explains a lot. dog is getting more and more excitable and forgetting that he is in fact nearly 60 pounds. he wants to be a lap dog. he keeps knocking jp over. this results in a black eye, fat lip, scraped nose and forehead. on my child. many, many, many tears are shed and i come to the decision that e and i are definitely capable of keeping a dog like this and working with him-- he is a great dog who just needs to not be a puppy-- but our son cannot suffer from a dog's puppy-dom. he must go back.
day 6: mom and i take dog back to humane society. i feel like a failure and i feel terrible for the dog. but my son's face looks horrible and my guilt begins to switch gears and i remember who is most important here. we get home and my jp (and my dad!) helps me do an insane amount of gardening. sooooo cathartic. the house is looking like a home finally and my parents have done so much work that it really feels like a home. all we need is an e.
which brings us to day 7, tomorrow. we will be heading back down to see daddy graduate from school and to celebrate with him :) we're VERY excited!!! and then we'll all come back on sunday and be happy campers :)
so that's the recap. crazy, huh!?
we got here on april 29th. i will attempt to keep this blog post relatively short, considering that we moved into our first ever single family home on a giant, beautiful lot, just far enough from the city and just close enough at the same time!
day 1: jp and mommy drove a 26 foot moving truck all by ourselves to our brand new home in alabama. we made it in GREAT time, got the truck to the weigh station, and a friend helped unload the kitchen and immediate need items. i unpacked literally the entire kitchen before going to bed. i also found a scorpion in our house before going to bed. it was no bigger than one of my knuckles, but i could hear him whispering "i'm coming for yooooooooouuuuuuuuuu".
day 2: friends come and unload our entire truck in 3 hours flat. our house looks like it was vomited into. someone asked how we could have so much stuff. unpacking begins and one of the same friends who helped unload the truck came back with his wife to bring us homemade lasagna. it was delicious. commence food coma. friends helped us put together some major furniture and unpack a lot of the living room. not much else was accomplished haha!
day 3: e leaves to go back to florida to finish school :( my parents come into town. jp and mommy go to the giant petsmart adoption weekend to scope out dogs. mommy brings a dog home. let the games begin.
day 4: dog is more active today, but i don't know much about that because jp and i go to the hospital on post to register and get all signed in to the area. now, if you'll recall, jp has a cast on. we have notes in his medical records from florida stating that he needs to get the cast off to check on some blisters that were on his feet--they wanted to make sure the blisters healed and didn't get infected under the cast. it took nearly 3 hours to get registered, plead for a walk in appointment for a referral to orthopedics, go get x-rays, then to the ortho, and then to the room to get the cast off. the cast came off. bad news: he has a pressure blister literally just over the size of a quarter on his heel. his cast had been applied incorrectly for a little boy who would eventually walk on it. it looked horrifying. they cleaned it up, applied antibiotic bandages, cleaned up his other blisters and recasted him with a walking cast. we were gone over 4 hours. he screamed off and on the whole time. i was exhausted. henson, the dog, is in love with me and sleeps next to me on the floor. he also loves jp and jp loves to feed him. i give doggie a rawhide bone. he attacks. he throws it up. awesome.
day 5: parents have done an insane amount of work. dog woke me up at 7:30. that's 6:30 central time. i am sleepy. 5 hours of errand running and utility set up today. back home. dog has separation anxiety. ok, we can deal with that. i call the listed vet to get the info on the dogs heartworm status and find out that dog is actually only 7 months old, not nearly a year like they told us. this explains a lot. dog is getting more and more excitable and forgetting that he is in fact nearly 60 pounds. he wants to be a lap dog. he keeps knocking jp over. this results in a black eye, fat lip, scraped nose and forehead. on my child. many, many, many tears are shed and i come to the decision that e and i are definitely capable of keeping a dog like this and working with him-- he is a great dog who just needs to not be a puppy-- but our son cannot suffer from a dog's puppy-dom. he must go back.
day 6: mom and i take dog back to humane society. i feel like a failure and i feel terrible for the dog. but my son's face looks horrible and my guilt begins to switch gears and i remember who is most important here. we get home and my jp (and my dad!) helps me do an insane amount of gardening. sooooo cathartic. the house is looking like a home finally and my parents have done so much work that it really feels like a home. all we need is an e.
which brings us to day 7, tomorrow. we will be heading back down to see daddy graduate from school and to celebrate with him :) we're VERY excited!!! and then we'll all come back on sunday and be happy campers :)
so that's the recap. crazy, huh!?
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