Done done done! (For now.)

Yesterday was the last day of this semester at school. It has been completely brutal. It didn't help that I had to travel a lot for the first half of the term, that my work AND B's work were insane, that I was taking the most work-intensive class of the whole stinking program, and that BOTH of my classes had group projects. I just realized I didn't even post here for almost two months!! Not that anyone probably really missed it, but it does say something about how busy things have been. It also says something about how busy things have been when the thing I'm looking forward to most is now having time to clean the shower.

I have always loved school. I'm that person. I'm the one who loves to learn things just to learn them, who actually likes writing papers, etc. I've especially loved grad school for two reasons: 1) sometime in my 20s, I lost my shyness, which I had to fake my way through in all my classes as an undergrad, so I've made more friends and participated a lot more in class; 2) I can actually use 90% of what I'm learning (the only real exception here is my PR class, which was a giant waste of time). But this semester, an alarming thing happened. I started to understand why people don't like school. I even started to understand why people drop out with a class or two to go. This semester really sucked. I think I did well in both classes, although the capstone class might have blown my 4.0 (down with group projects!), but I've also grown up enough (barely) to be able to realize that nobody but me cares about my GPA.

When I came home last night, though, my awesome family had decided to take me to dinner at my favorite restaurant, and I ate almost an entire bowl of guacamole by myself, and things started to look up. When I woke up this morning, my very, very first thought was: no homework today! So I'm going to just enjoy the next few weeks before I have to go back, and try to tackle more things at work and at home that I've been meaning to get to. Like Christmas shopping, which I haven't even started!

I'm pretty proud that in all of this craziness (me on overdrive with work and school, B having to work extreme amounts of extra hours), H doesn't seem to have noticed that we've been stressed out. I think that's the most important thing.

I'm so happy! Weeks and weeks off, and my last class in the spring has the potential to actually be fun. But for now, it's time to relax!

Things I'm going to do when I graduate

I have come to hate school so very much this semester that I've decided visualization might be the only way to get through. Thus, I have taken to imagining myself walking across the stage at graduation, wearing my nifty hood and feeling ecstatic that I'm done. In my imagination, I am also shouting, "Woo hoo!" at the top of my lungs, and smiling really big. I must make this vision a reality, and so I have to power through 7 more months of school.

I've decided that, as further, motivation, I am going to start a list of stuff I'm going to do after I graduate. This is just the beginning:

1. Sleep.
2. Go out to dinner and drink a lot. I haven't made up my mind if it's going to be martinis, or if I'm just going to get a big bottle of Riesling. I have time to decide.
3. Do something fun with B and H.
4. Have a HUGE party. I'm inviting everyone I know. One of the reasons I decided NOT to push it, and to go ahead and graduate in the spring, is so the weather won't suck and I can actually have a party. I didn't have a chance to celebrate my undergrad degree because it was December in Indiana, and we had snow storms, and they interrupted our graduation ceremony to announce that parts of I-65 were closed.
5. Avoid school for a long, long, time, with the exception of H's school. Her school is fun.
6. Actually exercise with some regularity. I'm holding out hope that I might have the energy for it then.
7. Sleep some more.
8. Start watching TV shows again.
9. Re-institute movie night with B.
10. Eat cake. I think I will have earned a cake. Cake for everyone!!

The Workout Log - Day 2

I did it! I got up early again this morning and worked out. I skipped yesterday because I figured that overdoing it my first week would just make me bitter and resentful about the whole thing.

So, good for me, I guess.

The Workout Log - Day 1

I finally got tired enough of being tired, gaining weight, and feeling stressed to actually make myself get up early (er, on time) and work out for 20 minutes this morning. It's dorky, but I actually bought a kickboxing video and used that.

News flash: I am SO out of shape! I had no idea it had gotten this bad. About 30 seconds in, I was thinking, "Wow, I used to be able to do this for a whole hour, and I already feel like my legs are going to fall off." And let's not even talk about the crunches. They've never been my favorite and I've never been that great at them, but holy abdominals, Batman, those were hard today.

So...I hope this trend continues and that I actually have a "Workout Log - Day 2" to share with you. I figure a little activity is better than nothing, and it might help me lose some of the weight I've gained over the past several months. I'm forming a loose plan in which I use the Wii Fit on my off days from kickboxing and crunches. If I can be just a little bit active every day, it will be better than I've been doing. It did work really well for my schedule to get up early and get it out of the way, but getting up early is not an easy thing for me to do!

Wish me luck!

10 things I wish everyone would realize about traveling

1. You know those little boxes at the gate that show you how big your carry-on can be to fit in the overhead bin? They are not a joke. Your bag really won't fit if it's bigger than that box. Save us all some time and stop trying.

2. If you cannot lift your bag over your head, you will not be able to put it in the overhead bin. You should not expect anyone else to help you with this. You should CHECK YOUR BAG.

3. Guess what? You can even beat the system and gate-check your bag. You still don't pay, and the rest of us won't have violent thoughts when you're holding up the line trying to cram your oversized, overweight "carry-on" into the bin. This will also save those of us who always sit on the aisle a lot of stress, as we won't have to worry about your bag falling out and giving us concussions. And if that doesn't happen, there's no chance we'll sue you! See, everybody wins!

4. Check-in counter and gate agents should really have the authority, ability and initiative to make you gate-check your bag if it is going to make the rest of the plane's passengers feel in a way similar to that described in #3. Only once have I ever seen a gate agent actually come around and tag carry-ons whether you liked it or not. That person was one of the heroes, people.

5. If you go to LAX and I go to LAX, you will always be the one to see the famous person. I have the worst luck with that!

6. My bag has a bright pink handle cover on it. I have never seen any other luggage with bright pink covers on the handle. The reason I have the bright pink handle cover is so I can recognize my bag, and you can recognize that it's NOT your bag. So...hands off my luggage.

7. No matter how comfy the hotel bed is, it is never as comfy as your bed at home. Never. I wish the hotels would stop trying to convince me otherwise.

8. Room service is never as good as it sounds on the menu. It is convenience food. But it definitely beats sitting in a restaurant alone. Some people don't mind that, and good for them, but I hate it!

9. I get to go to a lot of "cool" places for my job, but I never get to do any of the "cool" stuff there. Business travel is really not all that fun, exciting or glamorous. That's why it's work. The best business travel is...effective. Woo! Effective!

10. Life would be better if every rental car came standard with satellite radio and a GPS. You'd know how to get where you were going, you could find a gas station close to the airport, and you would never be faced with choosing between the best of three different local country stations.

OBX, Day 6: homeward bound

Well, that's it. We're home. And I've already started on the laundry. :)

Yesterday was our last day of vacation, and consisted mostly of traveling. Therefore, it's not a terrifically exciting story. We checked out of the hotel, loaded up the car and drove to Norfolk. We stopped for lunch on the way, and dealt with H's somewhat snippy attitude. We think this was a combination of 1) being bummed that vacation was almost over; 2) being tired; and 3) dreading the plane ride.

We'd planned to kill some time in Norfolk because our flight wasn't until nearly 6:00, but H fell asleep right when we got into the city, so we felt like we should just drive around and let her sleep (see "snippy attitude," above). I managed to figure out how to use the Maps app on my phone to get directions, so we just drove around for awhile. We drove by the Battleship Wisconsin, which looked impressive. There was a big waterfront shopping district that also looked interesting, but we didn't stop. I got the impression that downtown Norfolk is kind of a neat place.

We headed for the airport and considered stopping at the Norfolk Botanical Garden, but decided it wasn't worth $20 to kill just an hour and a half or so. We just returned the car instead and headed for the airport terminal. H had definitely perked up and returned to her usual sunny self by then, so we were all in a better mood. H and B went to explore the airport a bit while I sat with our many bags, and they returned with Starburst and chocolate chip cookies. :)

After we checked in, H found a little play area and made a new friend in the playhouse. It turned out she and her family were on our flight back, so they also got to hang out a bit at the gate. H had bad memories of her ears popping on the first flight, so she started whimpering before we even got on the plane. After we were seated (in a nice, new plane, actually), she kept up a steady stream of crying and saying, "I want to get off, I want to get off." I explained we couldn't get off because the plane was thousands of feet in the air, but this didn't seem to help. Neither did cookies and a whole lot of Starburst. Our theory is that the IDEA of her ears popping was worse than they actually felt, because my ears weren't that bad and I have terrible airplane ears. I let H sit in my lap when the seatbelt light went off, and did a totally mean mom thing and told her if she cried anymore I was going to make her sit back in her seat. However, it worked. I could handle the whimpering and being unhappy, but there was just no call for crying. After awhile, I think she realized her ears actually were okay, and she sit back in her seat and colored and had a fairly good time. Big props go to B for distracting her and making her laugh on the flight. We told her that she'd have to get used to flying, because if you want to go anywhere really cool, you usually have to fly there. I think she's resigned to it. In fact, while we were landing, my ears were the worst they were on the entire flight, and H didn't seem bothered at all! We were totally perplexed. See? Happy:


We'd made reservations with a car service to bring us home from the airport, and they sent a stretch limo! So we ended our vacation in style. H kept saying, "Why are we riding in this very long car?" I think she thought it was pretty cool.

Oh yeah, and I need to write the Official List of Atchison Outer Banks Vacation Quotes. So, here it is:

1) Arp Weefee! (Still hilarious, and I don't care what anybody says.)
2) "It's not a bear butt, it's a dog butt!" (This takes explanation. I told H I saw her bare butt after a bath one night, but she was pretending to be a dog at the time, so she corrected me.)
3) "Sorry, we're out of velociraptors. I only had one and somebody took it!" (See the family blog for explanation.)
4) Pool Weefee! (Seen on some other hotel marquees.)
5) "The kite is gonna hit that cloud! I'm just joking!" (H likes flying kites.)
6) "I don't want to go in the water!" (Guess who said that one...a lot.)

And that's that. We had a great time. Now we have to think about where we want to go next. H suggested India, but we think that might be a bit expensive... :)

OBX, Day 5: NC Aquarium, souvenirs & Tropical Storm Danny wimps out

This was our last day in the Outer Banks. :(

Because we'd basically done everything we wanted to do, we got a nice, lazy start to today. We didn't even leave the room till after lunch time (well, I went to the lobby to get breakfast, and B had to make a potato chip run, but other than that...). This about sums up the morning: I read, B did stuff on the computer, and H painted in her new paint with water book. It was quite nice. :)

Today was another blazing hot day, and there was a chance of rain, so we thought indoor activities were in order. We decided to go to the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island, and it was so worth it! It was a neat place, and we got to see lots of the fish and other animals that are native to this area up close. We especially enjoyed looking at the turtles. (Picture to be added later. The aarp weefee connection is very slow tonight.)

H really liked the sharks, and I have to admit, they were pretty cool. She stood right next to the glass of their tank and talked to them as they swam past: "Hey you shark! Hey, big shark!" They did not seem to pay much attention, but she also didn't seem to care. I think she just liked looking at all the different kinds of fish - especially the big ones. I liked the river otters. There were some cool snakes there, too. I think B just liked watching me and H look at everything. We did get to touch stingrays (well, I did), and there was also a tank where you could touch starfish, sea urchins and hermit crabs. H stuck her hands right in both tanks, which I found amusing; I mean, she refuses to walk in water even with water shoes on, but she will plunge both hands right into a tank with swimmy/crawly/spiny things in it. Weird.

We finished our trip to the aquarium in the gift shop, where we got H a big stuffed shark. She named it...Shark. I was hoping for something more creative, but whatever. We brought him back to the hotel, where he met Chilly the penguin, and they seem to be getting along fine. H also introduced Shark to Leap and Tad the toy turtles, but he tried to eat them, so I'm not sure that relationship is going to pan out very well. Leap and Tad kept having to hide in their shells because, as H put it, "The shark wants to eat their squishy bodies, but he doesn't want to eat their shells."

After the aquarium, it was still too hot to do anything outside (we briefly mentioned Festival Park, but decided we'd had enough of being sweaty on this trip), so we set off to go souvenir shopping. We learned that one of the difficulties with being from a major metropolitan area is that none of the malls around are very interesting, because you can get any of that stuff at home without having to worry about going over the weight limit with your suitcase. Still, we found a good store with lots of OBX stuff, so B got a hooded sweatshirt. Then we headed back to Kitty Hawk Kites, where we'd seen some T-shirt possibilities for me and H during the week. I got a long-sleeved Life is Good T-shirt with the Cape Hatteras lighthouse on it, and H got one that says, "I climbed Jockey's Ridge." I think all of us liked that spot best out of all the places we went on this trip.

This evening we went to someplace called Miller's for dinner, after our third unsuccessful attempt at Tortuga's Lie. I don't know what time you have to get to that place to get a parking spot, but it's just going to have to wait till our next trip out here. We also drove by Carolina Seafood, and it, too, had no available parking. It was a little humorous, actually, because we just kept driving up and down the same road, looking for a restaurant that a) looked good and b) had parking. Miller's ended up being a good choice. H said they had good applesauce, AND you get a whole basket of hush puppies with your dinner. I love hush puppies dearly. B and H liked them, too.

After dinner and a bath for H, we played two more games of Kids of Carcassonne, then we ate popcorn and rocked out to music for awhile on B's iPod. H invented a new dance we're calling the Postage Stamp, since it looked like she was licking a stamp when she did it. It is hard to describe, but believe me when I tell you it was hilarious.

We all agreed we've had an awesome vacation, and the best part was getting to spend so much time together. It has been blissful. I'm sorry it's almost over.

Tomorrow is a travel day...let's hope it goes smoothly!

OBX, Day 4: more beach, more sand dunes, more kite flying, mini golf & Tropical Storm Danny Watch continues

Today was a fairly lazy day where we still did a lot of stuff.

One of my favorite things about vacation is not having to hear an alarm clock. Who cares what time we wake up? This morning I woke up to the sound of H talking to herself in her bed. Much better than a dumb alarm clock.

After breakfast, we played two more games of Kids of Carcassonne. I won one and B and H tied for the other one (which H helpfully pointed out meant that I had NOT won that one). Then, we headed back to the beach. I made a sand castle that I was fairly proud of (below), and I took a picture of it before H came through and stomped it. (This is her favorite part of building sand castles.) B found a couple more cool shells. We hung out. H still refused to go near the water...we tried to bribe her into putting her toes in, but no go. It didn't seem worth it to try to force the issue. It would ruin the vacation vibe.

After the beach, it was time once again for baths and showers for all - especially H who, as previously mentioned, would not go in the water, so she was covered head to toe in a thin layer of sand. After cleaning up and eating lunch, we proceeded to sit around in our room for an hour or so. I read my book and posted yesterday's recap. H played games on my iPhone (she's addicted). B looked up stuff about Tropical Storm Danny. I know that makes for a really boring story, but honestly, just sitting around is so great.

In the afternoon, we went to play mini golf, and we all got holes in one! Even H got one, and it was on a tough hole, too. I actually got TWO holes in one (and dominated the game), but I am trying not to gloat. :) H and I both did "hole in one" dances (that's her in mid-dance at left)...but now that I think about it, B didn't do one. We should've made him. Anyway, it was fun, but pretty hot again this afternoon, so after mini golf we needed ice cream. This made H very happy. The Dairy Queen was in the same building as an arcade, so we wandered over there and they had my favorite arcade game - it's like those claw games but with plastic toys, so it is really easy to win. (This is the same kind of machine they had at the bouncy house place where we had my 30th birthday party, where I won my current collection of dinosaurs, orcas and unicorns.) I won two turtles for H. She spent the rest of the day playing with them. She named them Leap and Tad, after the frogs in the Leap Frog toys.

The weather started to cool off a bit after ice cream, so we went back to Jockey's Ridge State Park (still our favorite spot from vacation) to fly H's penguin kite again. The wind was perfect - the kite flew higher than it's ever flown before! I actually remarked to B that I couldn't figure out what makes flying a kite so fun, but it really is. H had a great time running around on the sand dune and drawing shapes and lines. It was just so relaxing, with not a ton of people around. We all love that place. We even got to see some people taking hang gliding lessons.

Dinner tonight was at a place called Jockey's Ribs, and it was great. Much more family-friendly atmosphere than the place we went last night (which we chose because it advertised its "extensive children's menu," but when we got there it was all quiet and had a lot of glassware). I had shrimp and lump crab meat (a great invention - crab without all the work), B had ribs, and H had two bites of cheese pizza. I think she wasn't that hungry, and also preferred to play with Leap and Tad the turtles.

Tomorrow is our last full day in the Outer Banks. It's looking like Tropical Storm Danny might not cause too much of a problem, but of course we're keeping an eye on things. We do officially have a Tropical Storm Watch here now...which sounds like they don't expect it to be too bad. Luckily, we've really done all the things we wanted to do, so we're just planning to do some souvenir shopping and maybe find something else to do that's indoors in case it rains. The weirdest thing about tropical storms/hurricanes, at least to someone who doesn't regularly have to deal with them, is that you get DAYS of notice. This is, of course, useful if you're someone who might have to board up your house and flee...but when you're used to sudden summer storms where you have to hustle for cover, having days to wait to find out what the storm is going to do is sort of strange. It's like stretching out your storm freak-out...you just want someone to say something definitive and get on with it! However, having notice is certainly better than not having notice. We're going to be watching the weather closely tomorrow, since if Danny affects this area, they expect it to be tomorrow night/Saturday morning. Guess we'll see.

I love vacation. The thought of going back to work is just...meh. Woo! Vacation forever!

OBX, Day 3: Roanoke Island, Cape Hatteras, Tropical Storm Danny Watch, scallops

This post is a day late because last night we had wifi issues at the hotel.

Which reminds me of the funniest thing, and I know it's not going to translate properly in this medium, but I'm giving it a go anyway. So, at our hotel, they offer an AARP discount. they also have free wifi. On the marquee outside, it says, "AARP WIFI" on one line. B pronounced this "Arp Weefee" and said it sounded like a singer from the 50s, and I cannot stop laughing about how funny "Arp Weefee" sounds! I'm laughing right now. Yesterday I was driving when he said it and I almost had to pull over because I was laughing so hard I was crying.

Anyway.

Yesterday we started the day by talking about Tropical Storm Danny, which is really threatening to put a damper on the end of our vacation. We are monitoring it closely. Right now it looks like we're just going to be dealing with rain and isolated storms. The latest news says it's tracking farther East than they originally thought, so we might not have a big problem with it. It could pose a challenge for our flight home on Saturday, but we're just going to have to wait and see. Yesterday and today are beautifully sunny and hot...so who knows.

Anyway, we drove to Roanoke Island yesterday to visit the Elizabethan Gardens, which were quite nice, but hot and full of mosquitoes. H got two bites, I got about ten, and B got zero. He never has trouble with mosquitoes. Still, the gardens were very pretty. They gave H a little worksheet with pictures of a bunch of things she could look for in the gardens, and she had a good time circling the things she saw with a tiny pencil. Fort Raleigh is right next to the gardens, so we checked that out, but it was sort of anticlimactic. The "fort" is a pile of dirt with grass growing on it, and putting up a sign that says "Fragile Earthenworks" does not convince me that it is more interesting. It was an old pile of dirt. But that's fine, because it was free.

We had some time after the gardens and fort (we'd expected to spend more time there, but it was just too hot yesterday to be outside too long), so we decided to drive to the Cape Hatteras lighthouse. We'd been planning to do that today, but figured we'd go ahead and do it in case we had tropical storm issues. H slept most of the way there (it took over an hour to drive out that far), but that was probably a good thing. She's been staying up late every night, so a little nap couldn't hurt. The drive was beautiful, and the lighthouse was cool. We got H a coloring book and crayons at the lighthouse so she'd have something to do on the drive back, and we all had to get snacks because we were hungry.

We'd planned to eat dinner at a restaurant called Tortuga's Lie, which a friend recommended to me, but by the time we got there it was completely packed and there wasn't even anywhere to park! So, we're going to try to go there for an early dinner tonight to see if we have any better luck. We ate at a place called Port O'Call instead, which was pretty good. I ate scallops and they were delightful. H had a hot dog with no bun, and B had shrimp fettucine alfredo. (Not that anyone cares what we ate, but food is important to me.)

We didn't get back to our room till about 9 o'clock, but H really wanted to play the new game we brought with us, so we did that. It's called Kids of Carcassonne and it's very fun. Very age-appropriate for her, since she seemed to pick up on it fairly quickly. I think we played about three games, and then it was time for bed. She liked it so much that we had to play two more games this morning. :)

And that's it for Day 3.

Everybody cross your fingers that Danny stays out of our way, the punk.

OBX, Day 2: sand, kite, sand, ocean, pizza

I'm tired!

Today started in my favorite way: sleeping in. I was the first one up, and I woke up at 8:30. I decided to hustle and get ready so I could grab breakfast for us before the free breakfast at the hotel closed. They have waffles!

H has really been looking forward to flying her penguin kite, so we decided to do that after breakfast. B checked the beach and it was crowded, so we drove back to the Jockey Ridge State Park to climb some sand dunes and fly the kite there. It didn't feel very windy, but we were able to fly the kite, which made all of us happy. :) (Funny - trying to fly a kite in the same sort of wind at home would've never worked...because there's too much stuff to block it!) I think the sand dunes are our favorite vacation spot so far. H said this was her favorite part of the day.

After climbing sand dunes and kite-flying, we were hungry and thirsty. (Lesson One for today: when one will be climbing giant sand dunes, one should remember to bring water.) We came back to the hotel to make a quick lunch. This was one of our strokes of genius for this vacation, as eating sandwiches in the room is not only cheaper, but also quicker than eating out. H had also been begging to go to the beach and make sand castles, so we decided to do that after lunch.

The great surprise of the day is that, in a family of non-beachgoers (none of us like water all that much, and at least two-thirds of us do not much care for wearing swimsuits), we had an awesome time. I think we spent about two hours hanging out on the beach. B and I walked in the water (B found some extremely cool seashells), but H wouldn't go near it. We were forced, instead, to bring buckets of the ocean up to where she was playing in the sand so that she could at least stick her hands in the water and rinse off before we came back inside. This kid does not enjoy water. Period. It even took some convincing before she believed that the water was not going to come up to where she was. But we all had fun building sand castles (B kept building some closer to the water to see how long it would take for a wave to knock them down). I was proud that none of us got sunburned (although Lesson Two for the day is that you don't fully appreciate how effective sunscreen is until you see the weird random sunburned patch that you missed when applying...I have one on my leg and B has one on his back).

After beach time, H was covered with sand, and since she refused to go in the water she went into the bathtub instead. We had some downtime in the hotel room, then decided to go to the Wright Brothers Memorial. It's right down the street from our hotel, and we feel a special kinship with Wilbur, since he was born in the county where B and I are from. We learned that while Orville gets the credit for the first powered flight, Wilbur had the longest flight of the day. We also learned that the memorial tower is at the top of a giant hill for no apparent reason (the park rangers say it's because it's where the Wright brothers would've built it if they'd had the choice, but nobody knows that, and I think it was just to torture poor tourists into walking up a giant hill). Though it was a tiring climb, and H spent part of it on B's shoulders and part of it riding on my back, the view was worth it. I'm glad we did it...but it was probably a bit more difficult since we'd already spent the morning climbing sand dunes! (Lesson Three for the day: when planning to climb up a big hill to look at a memorial tower, also bring water.)

Dinner tonight was at a little local pizza place down the street from our hotel, which was quite good. I joked that it was our duty as pseudo-Chicagoans to check out pizza places in other markets to make sure ours were still the best. :) However, this was my one night off from seafood. I'm committed to eating lots of seafood for the rest of the trip.

Tomorrow I think we're going to try to head to Roanoke Island...although we might change our minds and decide to do something else. Whatever. Woo! Vacation!

OBX, Day 1: first flight & sand dunes

Woo! Vacation!

That is the official Family Vacation Cry, and the three of us have been chanting it all day. We are in the Outer Banks and already having a great time. It was H's first time on a plane - and her ears were just as bad as we thought they would be, despite Benadryl and cookies and apple juice and a very sweet flight attendant who offered all kinds of help. But we all got through it. Before her ears started popping, she was having a rockin' time on the plane - especially when we flew through a cloud on our way up! She kept giggling and going, "Whoa!" and staring out the window. At one point she even held up her stuffed penguin, Chilly, so he could see the view from the plane, too. I think she probably loved 50% of the plane trip and then didn't like 50% because of her ears.

We flew into Norfolk and then drove down to the Outer Banks. H fell asleep in the car practically before we'd left the airport. She thought it was very funny that we "borrowed" a car (I don't think she understands "rent" yet). I was just impressed that a mid-sized car has more cargo space than my SUV does...but it's good because at least all of our luggage fit.

Aside, before I forget: H has been singing, "We're on vacation! We're on vacation!" and "Outer Banks! Outer Banks!" all day today. It is adorable. I don't think I've ever seen anybody so excited to go on vacation, which is funny because she didn't even really know what vacation was before this. I doubt she's able to remember the last family vacation we took three years ago.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled story. We got to our hotel, checked in and headed down to the beach so we could all get a look at the ocean. H is adamant that she will not be going in the water, which is okay...I think she would like to live in the sand, so we'll just do that instead. We made a stop at the grocery store after dinner (we have a suite with a kitchenette), and while we were there we picked up a few beach toys to aid in the construction of sand castles. :)

We went to a local restaurant for dinner, where I had the first of what I think will be several consecutive seafood dinners. Then B drove us around for awhile so we could check out the area, and we happened upon a state park that's full of sand dunes. B thought we should stop (he's much better at spontaneous vacation stuff than I am), so we did, and it was the best part of the day! H had an awesome time running up and down the dunes, and we got to see lots of people flying kites! We're going back sometime while we're here so we can try to fly H's penguin kite. She's very excited about that. I don't think I've ever seen her so happy...just being able to run around someplace new, watch the sun set over a "hill made of sand" and get dirty. Must be heaven when you're 4. I have to say B and I were pretty happy, too. :)

The point of this vacation was to go somewhere relaxing and just BE for several days...and I think we are off to a good start. Tomorrow I think our plans consist entirely of the following: 1) breakfast; 2) kite flying on the beach; 3) lunch; 4) Wright Brothers Memorial; 5) dinner. Probably enough for one day.

La-di-da-da-da-da-da, feelin' chubby

A few months ago, one of my friends posted on her blog that she'd realized she was heavier than she wanted to be. (I am not linking to it, because I doubt she really wants additional traffic to that particular post.)

But anyway, where I'm going with this is that today I've had a similar realization.

It's not like I looked down and went, "Whoa, look at that! When did I suddenly gain all this weight?" More like, I just finally decided I'm tired of it. Since I got the Wii Fit, I've actually been weighing myself, and I've noticed that my weight keeps going up instead of down. According to today's weigh-in, I am currently a depressing 20 pounds heavier than I was when I got pregnant five years ago. This would explain why all my pants and skirts are tight, and why most of my button-down shirts do not comfortably button around the hips anymore. Some of them don't button around the hips at all anymore.

So. Not. Cool.

I attribute this frustrating situation to a few factors:
1) I quit exercising a year ago when my kickboxing teacher got fired, and the new one sucked. Since then, I have convinced myself that I don't have any time to work out because I have other things to do, like work 50 hours a week, travel frequently, go to school and, oh yeah, try to spend time with my family.

2) I travel too much. And as anyone who travels knows, most of the time you're at business dinners that involve rich food - and too much of it. And I have no willpower, so if somebody orders dessert for the table, I eat it. And when I travel is the only time I drink - and alcoholic beverages are rather caloric in general.

3) I still think my thyroid my be off. I go back to the endocrinologist in October so I guess I'll find out then. When I had my yearly exam a few weeks ago, my doctor said my thyroid felt okay - so this might be an empty theory - or an attempt to blame this on something that is not my fault.

4) Stress. I have been super stressed-out and on edge lately, and I am a stress eater. I don't just eat and eat and eat, but I do tend to turn to ice cream for comfort when I am crabby.

So, tonight I did something insane and I actually busted out the running game on the Wii Fit. And I ran for TWELVE ENTIRE MINUTES. Which is shocking, because I hate running. I also did advanced boxing and step aerobics. I guess it's a start.

The question remains if I am going to feel crummy enough about myself to actually head back to the gym with any regularity...as my willpower certainly deteriorates quickly after 9:00 p.m., which is about the time I would be able to go to the gym.

I just want my stupid clothes to fit again. Bleh.

Will keep you posted on how I decide to tackle this latest challenge. I'm open to suggestions.

Relaxing :)

In a rare twist, I get to be home for this whole entire week. Also, after working on my budget until 10:30 Sunday night, I have not worked at home the last two evenings. I made dinner two nights in a row. Last night, B and I watched a movie (Get Smart - hilarious if you were a fan of the TV show, and probably not that interesting if you weren't). I've gotten to pick the kid up from school two days in a row. I ate an ice cream sandwich after dinner. Now I'm sitting on the couch doing not much, thinking not much and feeling really happy about it.

Simple pleasures. :)

Feeling much better

Today was my last day of my summer class and...I actually managed to finish the project! It's not that I didn't really think I would do it - I knew I would somehow type enough words to fill the paper requirements - but I am just so relieved that I finished, presented without sounding too out of it, and am done. Having one less thing to worry about for a couple of months is going to be very helpful, I think.

I am still very stressed, but just removed one factor. School itself doesn't stress me out - and by that I mean that I don't really have trouble grasping or applying the concepts. But the time it takes to do a decent job on the work DOES stress me out because, at least for this crazy accelerated class, I certainly did not have the necessary time available. So I'm just glad to be done. There may even be a chance I can pull an A-, which would still ruin my 4.0 but is at least better than a B.

And yes, I know I am a total dweeb for complaining about the possibility of getting a B, and that people get Bs all the time and that they are okay, and that I should just shut up about it. You'd have to know how deeply rooted my desire for getting an A really is to understand that it's a big step for me to say that I'd still be okay with getting a B in this class. I mean, it's come to that. And I haven't had a B since high-school math class. But at some point it's important to acknowledge the obvious, which is that I am doing too much stuff right now, and a B is perfectly acceptable in that situation.

But part of me still hopes to eek out the A-. :)

Guess we'll see. I'm just SO GLAD TO BE DONE! I need a break for sure.

I am tired.

I tried to think of some cute title for this post, but that seemed like a lot of work, so I gave up. I considered "Yes, I'm still alive" and "Yes, I still have a blog and I remembered the login" and "Hey, mom, here's that post you've been waiting for," but in the end I just went with something simple and true.

Last Friday was my worst travel experience ever, of any kind, and that includes the time I went to St. Louis and got a cab that the driver had to start with a hammer. Somewhere in hour three of the six-hour drive my colleague and I made from Charlotte, NC to Nashville, TN in our desperate bid to get home to Illinois, I started seriously questioning my career choice. And when I had to walk into class after my epic journey without even going home first, wearing clean socks and a clean t-shirt brought to me in the parking lot by my wonderful husband and child, I started seriously questioning my school choice. I have gotten over all this serious questioning, but am left feeling very overwhelmed, very tired, very inadequate as a spouse and mother and very uncertain of how to get myself out of this in one piece.

In case anyone I work with or for has happened to notice that I have a blog, and has somehow found it, I would like to be clear that I do, most of the time, like my job, and I do think I am basically good at it. But the amount of work has reached a critical mass that makes me feel like I'm not doing as well as I could at any of it, and I find that very frustrating. I like to be really good at things. I am a little weary of spending my days running from one meeting to the next, each about a different topic, throwing in a few business trips, trying to get homework done to some reasonable standard and still do a decent job of just being married, being a mom and occasionally cooking food or cleaning the bathroom.

One day last week, I had eight meetings. Eight. And I had a trip the next day (the fateful trip to NC), and I wasn't near being done with what I needed to do, and B had to work late because I was going to be gone the next two days and he wasn't going to get another chance. So I did the only thing I could think of, which is pick the kid up from school and take her back to work with me, at 6:30, so that I could finish my stuff. And she was beautifully well-behaved, wonderful in every way, as usual. But I felt like utter crap about it. I was getting ready to be gone for two days and I couldn't even spend some nice time with my kid watching Looney Tunes or building Legos or who knows what. She sat in a chair in my tiny cube and watched me work while she ate goldfish crackers.

So I went on the trip, then ran into travel insanity, and found myself finishing my homework for school while balancing my laptop on my knees while my colleague was driving to Nashville. I emailed the sorry thing to the professor at midnight that night when we finally got to the hotel. Thank goodness he was very understanding and didn't make me try to present my work after I stumbled into class 3 hours late, having flown in Saturday morning and driven straight to school. He even let me resubmit my homework so I could look it over to be sure it was coherent.

Yesterday was Father's Day, and while B said he had a great day, I wished I could have gotten it together to do more for him. He's been pulling all the weight at home lately, and he never complains or questions any of my travel or homework or anything. He just adjusts his schedule and makes things work, and even knows how to do ponytails so he can do Hannah's hair when I'm not home. He is wonderful. He is amazing. And I wanted to do something really great to show him how much every single thing he does means to me, and I couldn't get it together. I got him a t-shirt. He said, "Well, you've been busy." Which is true. But is it an excuse?

Then today at work was insane again, and I am just tired. And I have another trip Wednesday to Thursday. At least class is over on Saturday and I have the rest of the summer off. Let's not talk about the final project that's due in 5 days that I haven't even started...I guess that's what the plane ride is for.

But I have officially hit the wall. I am trying to do too much. And yeah, I get the next two months off from school, but what am I going to do in September when it all starts up again?

I blame Facebook

I haven't posted anything at all to my blog in weeks, but I've checked Facebook pretty much every day. In my defense, I've been really busy, and I also don't think anybody really misses my blog posts, as I have approximately 5 regular readers (Hi, Mom).

So, for an update, here are some random thoughts:

I finished the spring semester at school last night (goodbye, boring PR class), and I start my summer class tomorrow. The summer class is an accelerated course, which means it will be a brutal amount of work but that it will also be short (over at the end of June). This means I still get two months off before starting the fall semester. Also, there is no required textbook AND there are no tests, and the prof's syllabus is even funny - so I'm feeling pretty good about this class already. I'm so glad my classes this past semester were pretty easy; I remember how burned out I felt last year at this time, and I can't imagine what it would have been like trying to start a new class two days after finishing those courses. This time, though, it doesn't feel like a very big deal.

I spent some significant time at work today getting a handle on my travel schedule for the summer. I figured out I have three trips in May (two still to go), two in June, three in July, two in August...and that's just for now. There's more to come. It's insane and causes me exceptional guilt and stress, but I'm glad to at least have a job that I like most of the time.

The Wii Fit I got for Mother's Day talks about people behind their backs. When I got on it today, it asked me how I thought Brock was looking lately. I think it might have a crush on him. Also, I don't like its superior tone. I have decided that because it a) doesn't know how delightful chocolate chip cookies taste and b) doesn't even have legs, there is no way for it to possibly know what it's like to be me, so it should just keep its thoughts to itself! It said I've lost seven-tenths of a pound this week, and it seemed completely unimpressed. However, today I unlocked boxing, and that was pretty fun.

The new Green Day Album, 21st Century Breakdown, is awesome. I am extremely bummed I can't go to their concert in Chicago...but I'll be at a trade show in Ohio instead. :( At least Brock gets to go!

This weekend, our goal is to get our hotel and airfare booked for our summer vacation. I'd like to be locked in so we know we're going! Also, we don't think airfare is going to get any cheaper.

I am sleepy. Time to go to bed.

And I didn't write a blog post till now!

I have spent ALL DAY doing homework (it is an awesome way to use a vacation day; you should totally try it). I have two papers due in a couple of weeks with a big, time-consuming business trip between now and then, so it's basically crunch time for getting these things done. While I did get a little distracted by Facebook a couple of times, and probably posted on my status a little too often just because I haven't had anyone to talk to all day, I am really proud that I lasted till now - 9 hours into my paper-writing extravaganza - to write a blog post. Usually I use this as a big procrastination tactic, so maybe I'm improving.

By my calculation, I have generated more than 4,000 words and about 18 pages of stuff today, not counting all the time I spent editing and formatting the stuff I already had done. I still have two more sections of one paper to do, and I am determined to finish that tonight.

I will be glad when this semester is over. It's kind of been a drag.

I am just like everyone else

So, I finally joined Facebook. If you know my real name, you can find me there. :)

I've been resisting for probably a year...but I finally hit the point where I figured there were lots of conversations going on out there that I wasn't part of, and that started to get annoying. So, even though this officially makes me just like a couple hundred million other people, I guess it also makes me cooler. I was starting to sound a bit like some cranky old lady with my opposition to joining Facebook ("I don't need one more thing to maintain, sonny!"). *chuckle*

So far it's kind of fun, anyway...although I find myself getting incredibly impatient with it because I really don't feel like figuring out how everything works. However, now that I've taken the plunge, I will persevere! It is amazing - and ridiculous - how engrossed you can get in reading the details of other people's lives...

Unmotivated

I did not realize it's been almost a month since I posted anything! Ah, I am a bad blogger. But really, I've been so unmotivated about just about everything "usual" lately that I guess I just didn't think about it.

Usually I use this space to whine about school, but I haven't been thinking much about school. I don't blog in any detail about work, which has consumed a huge portion of life lately with travel and then the inevitable, all-consuming aftermath of travel, where you try to get all the work done that piled up while you were traveling. And I've been totally slacking and using the little free time I do have as actual free time, and doing stuff like reading books (instead of homework), hanging out with family, celebrating Brock's birthday with a fun day in the city, etc.

So other than reading two really good books lately (The Serpent's Tale by Ariana Franklin and The Lady Elizabeth by Alison Weir - I am in a historical fiction mood), I don't have much to report.

I am taking a day off work next week to knock out my final papers for school, since for the first time in my life I have been actively choosing not to do my school work. I just can't get into it, and I haven't been forcing myself. I have a theory that because I will soon be 2/3 done (yippee), and because neither of my classes requires a great amount of thought or effort, I have hit a wall. Brock says I'm turning normal, and starting to act like a regular student, but it's weird for me. You'd think I would be more concerned, but I'm not. I just hope I can push through it before I start my summer class, because from here on out I don't think my classes will be easy at all. So I'm enjoying coasting for this semester, and I'm going to have to buckle down from here on out.

So yeah, I'm just kinda boring right now. That's okay.

B is for Bueno

I am traveling for work (again) this week. I had one midterm paper due today and another one is due tomorrow. I have emailed them both to my instructors, so at least they're done. I have decided, all things considered, that they are both solid B papers, and that's okay. I don't like it, but it's reality. So I was talking to Brock on the phone tonight and he said "B is for Bueno" - which I liked.

When you are traveling for half the month your midterm papers are due, and you have dinners to go to and actual work you have to do each evening because the meetings you were in all day did not make it possible for you to do any work, a B just has to be okay, right? Really, at this point, I'm rather impressed that they're done and they're coherent.

I think I am going to try to be well-adjusted about this until I get my papers back. If I do, by some miracle, get an A on either of them, I am going to seriously consider dialing down the amount of effort I put into things. It would show that it is possible to get an A while being horribly distracted. *chuckle*

A bit of shameless self-congratulation

If you were one of the 100+ people who took my blog reader survey for my research class project last year, I would like to say THANK YOU - because I found out today that my paper is being published in my school's communication academic journal! Woo!

I am really excited; I enjoyed that project a lot and learned that I was a research nerd in the process of doing it. And...my paper got accepted to the journal with NO requests for edits! I am so jazzed. :)

Travel day

I am in California right now for work. I left our house at 10:15 this morning and got to my hotel around 6:20 Pacific time, roughly 10 hours later. It was a long day. Hannah was mad at me for leaving and almost refused to hug me goodbye, and then she didn' t want to talk to me on the phone. That made me very sad, but I understand. She doesn't get why I had to leave and I'd be mad, too. Besides, I don't like it, either. However, California is sunny and has palm trees, and even if I am here for work, there are worse places you can be forced to go (Exhibit A: St. Louis, which is my least favorite city I've ever visited, with apologies to the people who live there and actually like it).

Anyway, here are some amusing/interesting things that happened today.

• My flight landed at LAX 20 minutes EARLY, which I was sure meant I was in the Twilight Zone. But then my connecting flight was 30 minutes late, so the space/time continuum must have righted itself.
• I noticed that many women travelers at LAX were wearing heels. High ones. I cannot figure out why.
• I heard a girl having a VERY LOUD conversation on her cell phone where she was apparently telling a friend that her boyfriend had finally said, "I love you" for the first time. I resisted the urge to congratulate her.
• I ate peanut butter pretzels, which was a treat since we don't have peanut butter at home.
• I had a fish taco for dinner that was awesome. The shrimp taco, not so much.
• My rental car is a bright, electric blue PT Cruiser. At first I thought it was the dumbest car ever - I actually laughed out loud in the rental parking lot - but after I got in I decided it was SO CUTE and I've now fallen in love with it. I am certain I have the most unique rental car of any of my coworkers. Even the dashboard is electric blue. I have to remember not to speed.
• My plane was full of little kids, who were all pretty well-behaved, actually. I had a horrible stab of homesickness because the little girl in front of me was watching The Backyardigans on her portable DVD player.
• I actually did homework on the plane and worked till my laptop battery almost ran down. It was a bit tough to do anything without internet access, but I got a pretty good outline of my thoughts. It helped that the in-flight movie was dumb so I didn't want to watch it. (I can't remember what it was, but it had Keanu Reeves in it, which should explain well enough. It even looked stupid with no sound, which is never a good sign.)
• I bought a new book, A Serpent's Tale by Ariana Franklin, to read at LAX because my laptop battery was almost dead and I'd read both my magazines, and I had a long layover. It's very good and will probably keep me from doing any more homework on any more planes. :)

And now, to bed - because I have to be ready to leave at 7:15 to drive the Electric Blue Love Bug (which we've already christened my rental car) to get to work!

Midterm panic

I have two midterm papers due in approximately two and a half weeks, and I have started neither of them.

It's not for lack of trying. I have fallen asleep looking up stuff on the computer more than once. But work has been crazy busy, and as a result I've been totally unmotivated to give up family/home time. So here I am, T minus 2.5 weeks, and not only do I have not a word written, but I'm also getting ready for two horrible weeks of business travel. Two weeks that coincide with the two weeks I have left to get these papers done.

How did I let this happen to myself? Bah!

I just needed to whine about that a bit. Tonight I must at least finish the first couple sections of one of these papers, or I am probably doomed. Nay, definitely doomed. Bah (again)!

The only consolation I have is that after this, I only have three times left in my entire life when I will have to deal with midterms. Because after I get this degree, I am SO DONE with school. Forever. Unless I'm teaching it.

Evil peanuts

Even though I typically prefer NEWSWEEK over Time, this is a pretty good article on all the fuss over peanut allergies.

I am a bit peeved by the people who seem to think "all the fuss" is just a bunch of parents overreacting and making it unnecessarily challenging for other people's kids to eat peanut butter sandwiches, but if you're going to have a balanced report, it does mean you have to let both sides have their say.

We have always tried to strike a good balance between being appropriately freaked-out by, and simultaneously reasonable about, Hannah's peanut allergy. We don't have peanuts at home, and we are really good at reading food labels. We picked a preschool that was consciously peanut-free and doesn't allow kids to bring food from home, so we're minimizing risk wherever we can. But we let her eat the cake at kids' birthday parties, and we eat out at restaurants all the time without creating a scene about what's in every single dish. (Besides, nothing on any kids' menu in any restaurant is very likely to have nuts in it, because it's all grilled cheese sandwiches, mac 'n' cheese and pizza.)

Still, having a kid with a food allergy - especially a peanut allergy, which is considered to be the most likely to result in the most serious reactions - means relying on other people to keep your kid safe...even more than any other parent has to do for any other kid. Our lesson on Epi-pens was terrifying, and even after carrying two with us everywhere we go for more than two years, I still live in fear of the day I might actually have to use them. I still catch my breath a bit when she eats a baked good that I have not been able to completely inspect, even if it is totally logical that a sugar cookie should be fine. But I also don't want to be "that mom" who makes a big huge deal out of stuff. I just want my kid to be able to eat without worrying that she's going to end up swollen in hives and unable to breathe.

Hannah's getting to the age where we are trying to teach her more about what it means that she's allergic to peanuts, and that she has to ask about new foods before she tries them. I think she's starting to get it - she at least knows that peanuts will make her "very sick." But I don't want to freak her out, either.

But I also want other parents to understand that peanut allergies are serious, and if you're not dealing with a food allergy in your family you should be grateful, certainly, but you should also be respectful of those who are. We don't want to be a pain, and we hate that we have to ask for special treatment sometimes. But we do it anyway, because we want our kids to be able to go out for ice cream just like yours (so we ask the person at the counter to go wash the scoop before they get Hannah's vanilla, or we just go for soft-serve straight from the machine); and we want our kids to be able to eat lunch with their friends without worrying about anything bad happening; heck, we also want them to be able to fly in a plane without fear, so is it really that big a deal if the airline has to give you pretzels rather than peanuts? We're just trying to keep them safe, and while we don't want to have to ask for your help, we still have to. You would, too, if it were your kid.

I know there are lots of food allergies, and one very good argument is that concessions aren't made for those allergic to those other foods (milk, soy, etc.) the way they are for those who are allergic to nuts. But it's also true that peanut allergies tend to mean more severe reactions, and they're less likely to be outgrown than a lot of those others.

For my daughter, that means that it's very likely that she'll still be dealing with this and asking for special treatment and hating to draw attention to her allergy into adulthood. But that's the way it is, and a little help is much appreciated.

School, schmool

I have always loved school. I haven't always loved all my classes, but I have always loved going to school and learning things and getting A's. :)

This semester I'm paying so little attention to school that it scares me. I'm 4 weeks in and I don't even remember when the midterms are due. And the worst part is that I periodically think, "I wonder when the midterms are due?" and I could, then, go look it up, but I don't.

I have one incredibly interesting class with a super-cool professor who doesn't seem to believe in having to do a lot of work and also believes in getting out of class early every week. This is the perfect storm of awesomeness for school: I learn something cool and applicable to my life every single week, but I don't even have to invest much to do it. I just show up and absorb. So I don't pay that much attention except for the couple hours a week I have to go there.

My other class is BORING and I am not learning ANYTHING so I'm having a hard time caring at all. It's an odd feeling not to care, but I really, really don't. For the first time ever, I'm embracing the idea that I can skate, and it's okay to skate, and I'm probably still going to get a good enough grade. I can't invest too much effort in something that's giving me no tangible or useful return except a grade and three more credit hours toward graduation. I even looked into dropping the class, but there's nothing else I can take; I've taken every other class that's being offered at the campus I prefer to attend, so I'm stuck.

It doesn't help that work is completely insane, so the amount of time I have left to divide between home and school is greatly diminished. And with two classes that don't really require me, at this point, to spend much time on them, I'm weighting my "free" time much more heavily toward home/family stuff.

It is so odd for me to just let this kind of thing go. But I guess I've finally hit the point where I know this is the way it has to be. Sometimes good enough is really good enough.

I've flirted with this "so what?" attitude before, but this is the first time I feel like it's really taking hold. I am beginning to understand how everybody in undergrad had so much time to go out and do stuff - they'd already arrived at this enlightened approach to education. Talk to me again, though, when I'm trying to get midterm papers done...because usually the closer the grade gets, the more wiggy I get. That will be the true test.

Which reminds me...I really should look up when those things are due. Bah.

I'm done with Twilight...what now?

This is kind of a review, I guess - but mostly it's just me sharing my all-consuming enthusiasm for the Twilight series. For the past three and a half weeks, I have done nothing with my down time (little that I have) but read these books. I know I'm very late to the game on this; the first book came out in 2005, I think, and the fourth and final one came out a few months ago. I kept holding off because I didn't think I had time to read them, and I wasn't sure if I even wanted to read them, but two of my friends - my age - highly recommended them so I finally went for it. I'm actually really glad I didn't start reading them till now, because I could just go straight through all four books without stopping, or having to wait in suspense while I wondered what was going to happen next. I just had to close one and open the next one, and keep right on going.

These are the first books I've been REALLY into since Harry Potter. It was so fun to be so excited about a book series again! Although, I admit, I was a little embarrassed for being so wild about books that are essentially about teenage vampires and werewolves. I confess that I didn't make eye contact with the salespeople at the bookstores where I bought the books. If I'd been thinking, I would have gotten gift receipts so it would've looked like I was buying them for a little sister or a niece or something.

But now, whatever. I loved these books and I don't care who knows it!

One of my friends asked me what the appeal was...and I couldn't really explain it. The mythology in the books is really intriguing, but I can't really come up with some high-sounding literary reason why I was so completely absorbed in the story. I just loved the characters, loved the love story, and loved the idea of something so imaginative being set in someplace so ordinary. The idea of a super-hot vampire being completely devoted to you for eternity isn't bad, either. I think, though, that what really did it for me was kind of remembering what it was like to be in high school and fall in love for the first time (for me, the only time!), even though there were no vampires at my high school (to my knowledge).

I finished the fourth book, Breaking Dawn, late last night, and I have to say I was very satisfied. It wasn't even like when I read the last Harry Potter book and felt sad that I was never going to read more about Harry. With the ending of the Twilight series, I just felt like I'd read the whole story, the ending was nicely tied up, and I could now go on with my life knowing what happened to all these characters. I don't particularly feel like I need to read more about them, because I'm not really sure what else is left to say. I'm also a bit glad to be done because I've been living on very little sleep while I've been reading these books (staying up till past midnight on more than one occasion, even during the week), so it will be nice to be able to turn off my brain and go to bed at a decent hour again. And when I have finally gotten some sleep, I have been having a lot of dreams about vampires, so it's not particularly restful. Some of them have been combined with work dreams, which is very weird, but oh well. :) Still, I love books, and I can't say enough about books that make me want to sacrifice sleeping to read them.

I won't say that the books were all perfect; there were definitely times when the main character, Bella, annoyed the heck out of me with her dramatic behavior, but then I remembered that teenage girls are just dramatic, so it was probably an unavoidable part of the story. Overall, though, they are the best books I've read in a very long time - worth the hype, and worth staying up too late and trying to cram in chapters over breakfast before work.

I'm now waiting on one of my friends at work to finish reading the series (I just loaned her New Moon, and I'm taking her Eclipse and Breaking Dawn on Monday) so I have someone nearby to talk about the books with!!

Slumdog Millionaire Review

We took a half day of vacation from work yesterday to go on a date for Valentine's Day, since the likelihood of going on a date on the actual day is never good for us. (We have no convenient neighborhood teenager to babysit, and no family nearby.) So, we went to lunch at Stir Crazy (where I tried something new, even though I didn't know what half the ingredients were, and it was delightful) and then went to see Slumdog Millionaire.

I know it's been out for awhile and already won a Golden Globe, so I will keep this short.

1) Go. See. It.
2) It is fantastic.
3) I now have a crush on the guy who plays Jamal, and I am resisting looking him up on imdb because I think he might be like 10 years younger than I am, and I just don't need that.
4) I laughed, I cried, I hid my eyes during a few uncomfortable parts. It had basically everything you need in a movie experience.
5) Go. See. It.

Finally...I saw the speech!

Those who regularly read this blog (hi, Mom) are probably curious as to why it took me a whole long day to post anything about the inauguration of my big crush, Barack Obama.

It's because I didn't see it.

I saw about three minutes of the inauguration speech while standing at the Hertz counter in the Philadelphia airport, waiting on the shuttle to take me and my coworkers to the terminal. I was mad when the shuttle came, because I was just starting to get into it. (They all reminded me that my fascination was well and good, but we had to, you know, get to our plane and go home.) By the time we got to the terminal, checked in, through security, etc., and to a place with a TV, everything was over and it was showing the Obamas walk into lunch.

I was greatly displeased by this. I was especially mad when I got home and watched the news, and the reporter said something to the effect of, "When you've been a reporter for many years, it takes a lot to make you really pause and reflect on the moment. But this is an event we'll always remember - and we'll always be able to say, 'I watched that.'"

But I didn't watch it! Can you believe it? I must really like my job. At any rate, I do very much want to keep it.

Thanks to a DVR snafu, none of the inaugural festivities ended up being recorded when I got home. But Brock found a bunch of videos on hulu.com for me, so I've spent the evening catching up. Here's my summary:

• Oath of office: not Barack's fault it got goofed up, and thank goodness he's still the president anyway.
• Speech: awesome. Well done. Still, a day later, I haven't heard a word against it.
• Poem: didn't quite get it, but I don't usually quite get poetry, either. Nice enough - but the shots of the crowd leaving during it made me feel bad for the poet. It can't be easy to write a poem for an event like that.
• Benediction: I have the sneaking suspicion that the pastor slid in his ending comments without anyone knowing he was going to do it, which make them even more entertaining. Good for him for trying to have some fun with it.
• Crowds: it was extremely moving to see the mall packed with so, so many people...I don't know if the country really is more united, or if I just feel that way because the guy I liked finally won, but it's a nice feeling to see so many people coming together and getting behind the president.
  
• Inaugural ball fashion: Michelle Obama seems so freaking cool. I think she would be fun to hang out with. And I thought her inaugural dress was very pretty, and not what I was really expecting from her. That said, I liked her yellow dress and coat for the inauguration better.

It's a new day in America, people - I hope it lasts at least a little while.

Housekeeping

I spent some time reworking the categories for my blog this evening...I decided the "random" category was getting a bit too random, so I tried to clean it up a bit. I've added "deep thoughts" to capture those posts where I am waxing philosophical about something, and probably will segment out a bit more as things occur to me.

For anyone else who reads this and has a blog, how do you decide which categories you want to include? I hate having categories with just one thing in them...which is a personal thing, and also probably why my "random" category is so scattered.

For instance, I had to put this one in random. Mmph.

Potato soup

This is what we had for dinner tonight. It is maybe the easiest recipe ever. The only remotely time consuming part is grating the pepper jack cheese. I like it because it's super-fast, tastes good and makes me feel like I put in slightly more effort than just heating up a can of soup.

Zesty Potato Soup
Adapted from a recipe that originally appeared in Simple & Delicious, I think
3 - 10 3/4 oz. cans cream of potato soup, undiluted
2 - 12 oz. cans evaporated milk (or just use regular milk if you'd rather)
2 large baking potatoes
2-3 tbsp. cooked and crumbled bacon, optional (the "real bacon pieces" in the baking aisle work great)

Toppings:
Shredded cheddar jack cheese
Shredded pepper jack cheese (If anybody finds this ready in a bag, let me know - I just grate from a block of pepper jack. Skip this if you want to, but it's worth it to have it.)
Fried tortilla strips, available near the bagged salad in the grocery store (The Santa Fe flavored ones are particularly good.)

1. Bake the potatoes in the microwave, and cut them into chunks.
2. In a large pot, combine the potatoes with all the other soup ingredients. Heat 5-7 minutes or so...until it's heated through.
3. Top with cheeses and tortilla strips.

It really is so good. It does make a lot for two people, but it's easy to adjust the amounts to make less.

Congratulations Jen & Doug!

Congratulations to my good friends Jen and Doug on the birth of their beautiful new baby girl, Olivia, who was born early this morning.

Way to go, guys! :)

On pregnancy

I'm not pregnant (sorry, parents, all of you). But one of my very best friends is, and she's due literally any minute (technically, tomorrow). I'm so extremely excited for her, and can't wait to meet the new little one! I have been obsessively checking my phone this weekend, just in case I somehow missed the call that they were at the hospital. Which is impossible, because I have also been obsessively carrying my phone everywhere, so that I wouldn't miss the call that they were at the hospital.

Watching my dear friend go through every step of pregnancy has reminded me how much I like not being pregnant. I've only done it once. It was reasonably pleasant, actually, as far as pregnancies go. I would probably remember more of it if I'd had a blog then, because I could have typed everything out. As it is, I didn't write very much down about it, so I don't remember a lot of it. I do remember that I didn't have morning sickness, but I had something flu-like for pretty much the whole second half of my pregnancy. I had a lot of fevers and coughs and couldn't take anything good for them. Having the flu stuff for the second half worked out, because for the first half my skin was so bad that I was embarrassed to have to go out into the world (in a PR job!!) and talk to people. Again, couldn't take anything good for it. So having them both together would have pretty much done me in...although if I'd had them both together, I suppose I could have just stayed home sick and avoided seeing people. I had a lot of very weird food issues. It was the only time in my life I've been a vegetarian, though briefly. But I had this very textbook delivery, with nothing weird, and a great epidural. And I came home with probably the best little girl in the entire universe (no offense to other mothers of other wonderful little girls). So it was worth it. And I know that I was very, very lucky to skate through as smoothly as I really did.

But you know what? Being pregnant isn't really very fun, and it really feels like it takes forever. (Anyone who says, "I LOVED being pregnant!" is either lying or doesn't accurately remember the details. These are also often the same people who say, "Oh, you forget the pain.") I don't feel this big urge to do it again anytime soon. I may, someday. I don't know. We've decided we're not going to think about having another baby for awhile - at least not till we know we can't live without one, the way we knew we couldn't live without Hannah. I say you know when it's time to have kids, and it has nothing to do with calendars or finances or anything else - it has everything to do with that feeling in your gut that your life is not going to be complete or fully happy until you have a child. That's when you know. And if you don't feel like that, don't do it. That's what I say, anyway. And we are just really happy being the Three Musketeers right now. But if we ever feel like that again, then sure, why not?

But the last thing I will say about watching my friend go through pregnancy is that it goes WAY FASTER when it's not you!

I made something!

Today, I conquered sewing. Allow me to explain.

Yesterday, we went shopping to buy Hannah the few school supplies that she needed to start preschool tomorrow. Because she's still little, she didn't need the standard supplies like pencil boxes and glue; instead, she needed a small travel-sized pillow and a blanket for naptime. We found the pillow (after a great deal of searching), but we couldn't find any pillowcases to fit it.

"Well," I said, "I could probably make a pillowcase if I put my mind to it."

See, I have a sewing machine. I even made something on it once, about six years ago, during a brief period in between jobs. And then I put it away. It's been in a closet in our spare room since we moved into our house five years ago. But I reasoned that I could probably remember how to use it well enough to make a pillowcase, which is, let's face it, comprised entirely of a few straight lines. So this morning, Hannah and I went to the fabric store so she could pick out exactly which fabric she wanted for her special school pillowcase. She quickly and forcefully chose purple (her favorite color) with butterflies.

It turned out that the hardest part was figuring out how to wind the bobbin. My sewing machine has a helpful diagram on the front telling you how to thread it, but it doesn't have a similar diagram for winding a bobbin, and that's what I really needed. I called my mom. She said every machine is different, so she wasn't sure how to do it on mine. She suggested I look in the manual, but considering the various supplies I needed for sewing were scattered all over the house anyway, the chances of finding the manual were (and remain) extremely slim. No help was available online (amazingly). Brock finally messed with enough stuff that he figured it out, which was a little funny.

And soon, I was off and running:


And, only two hours and three calls to Mom after I started, I was finished:


Hannah was really excited about her new pillowcase. She was "breaking it in" this evening by lying on it. And I don't mind saying I was pretty proud of myself for making something for her, even if it was very simple. I remembered why I bought the sewing machine in the first place: it is a great sense of accomplishment to make something yourself.

Of course, I have no free time usually, so the chances I'll be making anything else again soon (besides, maybe, a spare pillowcase for school) are not great. Still, today I made something for my kid. Hooray for me! :)

Happy 2009! Last year's results & this year's goals

Happy New Year! As I said last year, I do like New Year's a lot. And I still do, especially this year, when 2008 had a lot of crummy stuff in it (financial crisis, corrupt governor of Illinois, blah, blah, blah). However, there were some very high points in 2008. Hannah is potty trained and Barack Obama won the election - these are equally important in my book. I turned 30 and had a very fun party. One of my best friends got pregnant after years of trying, and is expecting a little girl just about any minute. Another of my friends had her first baby. My kid is awesome. My husband is awesome. I got all A's. I got a promotion. So even though times are tough, I am trying to stay "up" as much as possible, because there are lots of good things to over-balance the bad.

Still, I thought it would be fun to revisit my goals from last New Year's, and see how I did. Since I didn't really look at them - ever - after I wrote them, I found the exercise of recording my "progress" to be quite humorous. (Below is an abbreviated version of the goals. For the full missive, go here.)

What I Said I Would Do in 2008, & Whether or Not I Really Did It:

• Give more to charity. RESULTS: I don't actually handle this; Brock does. I think we did okay. :)
  
• As an addendum to the above, I would like to find a good place to donate Hannah's used toys. RESULTS: Still no luck. Not even the homeless shelter near work takes used toys. Bah.
  
• Get more organized. RESULTS: Ummm, I DID clean my desk on New Year's Eve...does that count?
  
• Try to cook from scratch a little more often. RESULTS: I'm happy I put the "a little more often" qualifier on this one. I probably did.
  
• Encourage more of my faraway friends to start blogs. RESULTS: No luck with this. Everyone's on Facebook and I'm not. My own fault, I know.
  
• Try not to be so snarky. RESULTS: I've learned that I gotta be me. And I'm snarky. This was a misguided goal. *chuckle*
  
• Try to finish praying before I actually fall asleep at night. RESULTS: Yeah, not doing so well on this one.
  
• Remember to use my new reusable grocery bag. RESULTS: Not only am I now remembering to use them, I've got like 8 in my car...
  
• Remember to use our new cloth napkins. RESULTS: We do remember to use them, when they are actually clean. Getting them washed in a timely fashion is much harder.
  
• Remember to water my plants (when it's actually summer, that is). RESULTS: It rained a lot this summer. Hooray!
  
• Potty train Hannah. RESULTS: Done and done.
  
• Take another family vacation. RESULTS: Stupid economy. Nope.
  
• Try not to freak out too much about turning 30. RESULTS: Mmmm, sorta.
  
• Actually join LinkedIn. RESULTS: I did it. I've never completed my profile and I don't maintain it at all, but I did join.
  
• Figure out a really great birthday or Christmas present to get for Brock. RESULTS: We bought ourselves a TV this year. That's the best I can do.
  
• Continue not eating cabbage. Or carrots. Or haggis. RESULTS: Total success.
  
• Eat more dark chocolate. It's good for me! RESULTS: Totally.
  
• Enjoy the knowledge that this will, without question, be the last year we have to endure George W. Bush in office. RESULTS: Wahoo!
  
• Vote well in the presidential election. RESULTS: You know it!
  
• Hope others vote well in the presidential election. RESULTS: Well done, people of America.
  
• Listen, and laugh, and love...a lot. :) RESULTS: Yep, did this. Good for me! :)
  

And, Here's What I Want to Do This Year:

• Get through Hannah's first day of preschool without crying in front of her. (It's Monday.) I am so proud and excited for her...but I'm struggling with the fact that she's so big and grown up now!
• Help Hannah learn to read and write.
• Get through 5 more classes for school, so that 2010 will be rockin' with just one left!
• Join Facebook. I'm starting to feel it's inevitable. Like I can't fight the movement.
  
• Get through a very long business trip in March without anyone in my family, including me, having a nervous breakdown.
  
• Be more thankful for the following: fuzzy socks, my daughter's smile, my husband's laugh, chocolate, cheese, friends and family, cars that give you directions, my job, my husband's job, Mario Kart for the Wii, Rock Band 2 for Xbox 360, plus our health and happiness and all that jazz.
• Get a tattoo. (Sorry, parents. I really think I'm going to do it...someday...I promise it will be very small and you'll never have to even see it or know it's there.)
• Sell our house and buy a new one. This is my stretch goal.
• Get new bedroom furniture, because we gave ours away in August and now we don't have any. And our bedroom looks like a dorm room. *chuckle*
• Have a garage sale.
• Figure out how to have or attend more parties. I learned this year that I like having parties.
  
• Really take a family vacation. Somewhere.

Next year, I'll let you know how I did.

My surprise 30th birthday (Or, Why I have the best husband in the universe)

We went to visit family right after Christmas...and there were some extra friends visiting, too, which was wonderful. Little did I know they were all there to celebrate my birthday!!

On Sunday, one week to the day after my birthday, we all went out to lunch. I asked where we were going, and my mother-in-law said, "Oh, there's this new place I thought we'd try." So we got there...and it was a surprise birthday party for me, all organized by my awesome, wonderful, amazing, thoughtful husband! It was my very first birthday party, because I never had one when I was little - my poor mom would try to plan them for me, and then I would get sick (because I was born on the first day of winter!), and then she'd have to cancel. So I finally told her to stop trying...but had I known having your own birthday party was so very fun, I might have kept up the good fight a little longer. I had an awesome time!

Most of my good friends from college were there, some having traveled great distances to do it...I only missed one friend who had conflicting plans and couldn't make it. My friend Vic came, and I hadn't seen her since her wedding reception two years ago. That was a pretty great surprise. And of course, all my family was there (except my dad, who was sick!). Pretty much everyone interrupted their Christmas breaks to come to my party, and I was just blown away that they would all do that for me. I got some lovely gifts (Swarovski crystal necklace) and some very funny gifts (a hula hoop, which I was completely hopeless at using), and just had a fantastic time with everyone.

But the best part? My party was at a place called Bounce About, which is a big room full of those giant moon bouncer thingies you see at kids' parties...but these were big enough for "big kids," too, so we all ran around and bounced and ate pizza and cake and drank way too much pop, and had a terrific time. I have got to be the only person in the history of birthdays who had her 30th birthday at a moon bouncer place. It was AWESOME, and the best, most creative idea for a 30th birthday party, and I could not believe my fantastic husband did all of that for me. He started planning it in October! He made sure everyone could come! And he thought of the very most fun place ever to have a party. (Hannah loved it - she ran up to me when we first got there and said, "Mom, I LIKE your PARTY!!")

It was the best day ever. I have rarely, if ever, had that much fun. I am so lucky to have the family and friends that I do!!

Thanks to everyone who came, or helped, or had anything to do with pulling it off. I was completely floored. I never suspected anything, and have never been so surprised. I like surprises when they're good. :)