Psychic Eggplant

Just because it's January...

2010-01-17T10:29:00.000-06:00

I think I'm suffering from "New Year's Syndrome." This is something I just invented to explain the feeling I suddenly have that I need to DO SOMETHING about my weight. It's actually not bad - I need to lose about 10 pounds to get back to "normal" - but it just seems so DAUNTING. And it sounds all well and good to start eating better (read: less cheese) and exercising more (read: at all), but I start school next week and I just know that there's no point in trying to start something until I know what the term is really going to look like. My work schedule is even more travel-heavy in the spring than at other times of the year, and I just don't want to do what I did last fall, which is to try to start working out only to find that I was too exhausted to make time for it. When your only real workout options are 5 a.m. or 9:30 p.m., it's pretty hard to find any motivation. Those are sleepy times.

I guess I hope that because I'm only taking one class this semester, and I don't think it's going to be too work-intensive, maybe I can get myself together and actually do something. I'm at the point where it's just kind of a nagging annoyance that I've gained weight, and I'd like to reverse the trend before it becomes a) worse and b) even more daunting than it already seems. I think it must be true that your metabolism starts to tank in your 30s, and my metabolism wasn't really firing on all cylinders to begin with.

But really, I'm not going to think about this anymore for another week. That's when class starts and I'll see how time-intensive the syllabus looks. If I won't have 2 hours of homework a night, maybe exercising at 9:30 won't seem like such a bad idea.

Done done done! (For now.)

2009-12-13T07:43:00.000-06:00

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

2009-10-19T22:38:00.000-05:00

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

2009-10-15T21:32:00.000-05:00

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

2009-10-13T20:21:00.000-05:00

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

2009-09-22T21:00:00.001-05:00

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

2009-08-30T11:23:00.003-05:00

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

2009-08-28T21:20:00.006-05:00

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

2009-08-27T21:33:00.004-05:00

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

2009-08-27T12:46:00.004-05:00

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

2009-08-25T21:06:00.008-05:00

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

2009-08-24T22:13:00.006-05:00

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

2009-08-10T19:50:00.002-05:00

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 :)

2009-07-21T21:12:00.003-05:00

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

2009-06-27T15:29:00.002-05:00

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.

2009-06-22T19:47:00.002-05:00

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

2009-05-15T22:32:00.003-05:00

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!

2009-04-27T17:19:00.002-05:00

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

2009-04-25T21:00:00.002-05:00

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

2009-04-21T18:30:00.003-05:00

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

2009-03-25T22:57:00.002-05:00

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

2009-03-18T22:24:00.002-05:00

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

2009-03-15T22:42:00.002-05:00

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

2009-03-08T18:00:00.003-05:00

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

2009-03-01T21:11:00.004-06:00

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

2009-02-18T21:12:00.003-06:00

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?

2009-02-14T16:51:00.003-06:00

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

2009-02-14T12:31:00.002-06:00

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!

2009-01-21T22:03:00.003-06:00

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

2009-01-15T21:14:00.002-06:00

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

2009-01-14T19:49:00.003-06:00

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!

2009-01-14T19:48:00.001-06:00

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

2009-01-11T21:33:00.003-06:00

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!

2009-01-04T20:48:00.003-06:00

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

2009-01-01T16:50:00.004-06:00

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)

2009-01-01T12:29:00.003-06:00

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. :)

10 steps to a perfect Christmas

2008-12-25T19:36:00.003-06:00

1. Wake up to sounds of three-year-old singing Christmas songs in her bed. Look at clock and realize it's after 8:00, and feel even happier.
2. Watch three-year-old in awe of her presents from Santa, presents from Mommy and Daddy, and presents from wonderful friends - well, in awe of everything but the boring old clothes... :)
3. Go outside and watch three-year-old and her daddy try out the new purple sled that Santa brought. Laugh when she says, "I wanna do it again!" every time the sled comes to a stop.
4. Do not bother taking a shower, changing out of pajamas (except for the brief jaunt outside) or putting on makeup.
5. Watch Wall-E (one of top 5 great movies ever) on new HDTV.
6. Play with three-year-old's new toys, including Play-doh (which smells weird and feels weird, but she likes it so it's still fun, I guess).
7. Make a very simple but delicious dinner of ham, broccoli casserole and "Mimi mashed potatoes" (potatoes with cream cheese, butter and sour cream).
8. Relax while husband does dishes.
9. Watch Frosty the Snowman for the 8 zillionth time, but that's okay. Smile when kid sings along with the theme song at the end.
10. Feel very lucky to spend the whole day hanging out with my little family.

Merry Christmas!

The school debrief

2008-12-24T16:16:00.002-06:00

So, I haven't mentioned on here that I am officially done with classes for the semester. I had kind of an anticlimactic end to the semester because on my last day of Saturday class, I didn't have to do anything but hand in my take-home final, and my last Thursday class got canceled because of the weather so all we had to do was email the take-home final to the instructor.

I do not enjoy studying or test-taking, generally, but it does make for sort of a sputtering end to the term when you can't do the brain dump onto your exam paper, drop the thing on the instructor's desk and emerge, triumphant, from the hallowed halls of learning that have sapped all your energy and free time for the preceding 15 weeks. But I am almost certain I got an A in both my classes, which makes me happy, because I like getting A's very much. :)

With this term, I am halfway done with grad school. This is AWESOME! I can totally see the end from here...it's like being at the top of the mountain, and while there's still a long walk down, at least from here on out I'm going down and not up anymore! Six more classes to go (two this spring, one over the summer, two in the fall and the big finish the following spring).

I'm planning to enjoy my nice, long break. I have to cram in some business travel in January since I'm not that available for business trips during the semester, but otherwise, I'll be happy to be home more. School only takes me from home two days a week, and I do almost all of my homework after Hannah goes to bed, but I still feel a little guilty that I'm not always here when she needs or wants me to be. Luckily, I have a great husband who totally picks up the slack for me, and keeps me sane.

I still love school, though. I'm kind of wondering what I'll do when I'm done. I like learning! I'm a nerd. :)

On turning 30

2008-12-21T16:42:00.004-06:00

Today I am 30 years old.

I spent most of the last year being freaked out about the looming three-oh. I'm not sure why. I'm quite pleased with where I am in my life. For some reason, though, when I turned 29, it hit me that I hadn't done anything crazy in my twenties and now they were almost over. I got married when I was 22 and one week, moved to a new state when I was 22 1/2, got a good job and bought a house at 24 and had a baby at 26. All of those are wonderful things, but it didn't leave a lot of time for being crazy. So I never did one crazy thing, ever - nothing to tell Hannah about when she gets older and I try to "relate" to her while she rolls her eyes and says I'm lame. *chuckle* And I think that's why I was having anxiety about 30. Because who does crazy stuff in their thirties?

I'm not even a "do crazy stuff" kind of person, which I suppose is why I never have. But I'd like to do one wacky thing, just once, that's fun but doesn't involve any kind of trouble. I've decided I will work on this in my "year of being 30."

The funny thing is, the closer my birthday got, the less I freaked out about it. I think the freaking out hit a fever pitch a couple of months ago, and it's been on this slow decline ever since then. It just seemed inevitable, and then it started to seem like any other birthday, and then it seemed like not a big deal at all. So I'm actually feeling quite happy today. :)

This is helped along by the fact that my family got me Rock Band 2, so I've been playing video games all day. And if you can still play video games when you're 30, there's still time to do something memorable and wacky, too! :)

Almost done

2008-12-15T19:59:00.003-06:00

So...I have one take-home final left, and that's it. I have zero motivation to even start it. (I've had it since Thursday night, and it has remained firmly in my pile of school books ever since.) My rationale for this is that, if I were to take the final IN CLASS, it would take an hour, so since I have three nights left in which to do it, certainly I can get it done in plenty of time. I know that fundamentally this is right. However, I really should've started the thing already. I mean, I haven't even LOOKED at it. I have no idea what's on it.

I think I might be turning into a "normal" student. And it only took nearly 30 years, a husband, a full-time job and a preschooler to get me here. *chuckle*

But speaking of "nearly 30 years," I went out for my "nearly 30th birthday" on Saturday and had a delightful time. (Probably saying it was "delightful" sounds old...like high tea or something. It was not like high tea, unless they have margaritas, tequila shots and vodka tonics at high tea...which, I believe, they do not.) Anyway, I went to The Baton in Chicago with some friends, which provides "the best in female impersonation" according to their website. (I'm not linking to the website because there's not much there, and you'd just be disappointed. Google it if you really care.) Anyway, the show was fantastic and we all had a great time. Two of the performers completely confused me with their flawless makeup and flawless other things. And two were totally making eyes at one of my friends, who happens to be a very cute gay man...partially because he's very cute and partially, I think, that they know they get tips if they stare at people in the audience.

And, remarkably, I was in "okay" shape the next day. I won't say I didn't need extra sleep, and I won't claim to have gotten through the day without Tylenol...and I did actually go outside the house without makeup for approximately the first time since giving birth because I just didn't have the energy to deal with concealer...but I was "okay." :)

So yeah, I'm NOT 30 YET!

And now, I must put my kid to bed and sort of think about maybe starting that final, I guess, perhaps...

Papers and presentations and tests, oh my!

2008-12-10T20:08:00.002-06:00

Sometimes, I wonder what my undergraduate career would have been like, had there been blogs and Twitter and the general internet environment we find ourselves in today. Because I think I procrastinated a lot then, anyway, and I can't for the life of me figure out how I was doing it. I think maybe I just watched a lot of Dawson's Creek and had deep, philosophical discussions with my roommate about why we liked Pacey SO MUCH BETTER than Dawson. Anyway.

So, I was reading Vic's 3:30 a.m. post about not being able to sleep during finals, and I thought, "Yeah, why is it so annoying? Was I this annoyed as an undergrad?" I think I probably was, but I also had a lot less going on.

So this week, for example, I have a paper and presentation due tomorrow. Paper is done. Presentation is not. And it's not done because I had stomach flu yesterday. Not a terribly bad case, but bad enough that I couldn't eat any food, which meant that by about 3:30 yesterday afternoon (after TWO two-hour meetings, plus other meetings, plus three presentations on various things having to do with my job), I was just about done. And the weather was crap. And then I came down with a fever. So, meaning to only sleep for a couple of hours before getting up to try to at least draft the presentation, I actually fell asleep on the couch and didn't wake up till 11:30. At which point, I just went to bed, because you can't START homework at 11:30.

So today I am better, but I have no presentation, and I have two things I need to do for work tonight AFTER I finish and practice the presentation, and here I am blogging.

Because it's a lot more fun to complain about stuff than it is to actually do it.

Although I suppose I should just go do it anyway.

It is so hard to focus!

2008-12-07T21:52:00.002-06:00

You know, Christmastime is very distracting. Especially when you have a little kid who loves Christmas lights and Christmas trees and Christmas everything else. And super-especially if you happen to work with a bunch of wonderful people who get way into the holiday spirit and plan no less than six holiday activities for your department. And really-especially if your birthday and your anniversary all happen around Christmas. It's fun, but I am having a hard time getting anything done at work or at home!

Like right now, I should be working on the second question of my take-home essay final exam for one of my classes, but I just kind of don't feel like it. So I'm procrastinating. But I said I wasn't going to bed till it was finished, and I meant it.

I will just have to put the following thoughts out of my head:
1) I have not started Christmas shopping.
2) I haven't even made the list of people we need to shop for.
3) I haven't begun to think about sending Christmas cards.
4) I would really rather be thinking about any of these things than multicultural marketing.

And so...back to my regularly scheduled essays. But this was a nice break. :)

All a-twitter

2008-11-23T20:05:00.003-06:00

So, you might have noticed something new along the right-hand side of your screen, here: Twitter Updates.

Yeah, I got a Twitter account today. Feel free to follow my every move; I'm highly interesting. *chuckle*

So...can Facebook really be far behind? I've been resisting, but I'm starting to think resistance is futile... :)

Steamrolling to the end of the semester

2008-11-20T21:58:00.003-06:00

I think I'm really about three or four different people: School Me, Work Me, Home Me (which could further split into Mom Me and Wife Me), Friend Me.

School Me is torn about class right now, because the end of the semester is barreling toward me. I am 99% sure I'm going to get an A in the class I like. I am 99% sure that getting the paper done for the class I don't like is going to be wicked torture. How can I like one class so much and hate the other one so much?

Anyway, after Thanksgiving I only have two classes left for one course (the one I hate) and three classes left for the other (the one I like). After my Tuesday "Oh my gosh school is almost over and I haven't even outlined the biggest paper I have to do" session, I am in okay shape on getting everything done. I'll be in better shape if I can grab a few hours over the Thanksgiving holiday to get some more work done, but that's usually challenging because we're with family, and they want to, you know, talk to me and stuff. *chuckle* Of course, I love being with them, too...but I also just want to get this stupid paper finished and out of my life forever and ever.

The thing is, I like being School Me. I love school. I forgot how much I loved school until I went back. So I wonder...will I miss School Me when this three-year odyssey is over? I think I probably will.

But then I think...if School Me goes away again, maybe I could get Reading for Fun Me back. I do miss her a bit. :)

Thanksgiving recipes

2008-11-19T06:34:00.003-06:00

I've been meaning to post these for several days, and now that the holiday is practically upon us, I figured I'd better get it done! These are the two recipes I make every year for our family Thanksgiving dinner. People demand the Pumpkin Cake Roll, which is a recipe I got from my friend Lisa, who got it from her mom, in college. I admit I make the Ricotta Spinach Pie mostly for myself, because it is AWESOME, but other people do enjoy it. Even Hannah likes it - I just tell her it's "cheese pie," conveniently forget to mention that it has a vegetable in it, and she eats it up.

Pumpkin Cake Roll
3 eggs
1 c. white sugar
2/3 cup solid pack pumpkin puree
1 tsp. lemon juice
3/4 c. flour
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. ground ginger
1 c. chopped pecans (optional, but definitely better with)

Filling:
1 c. powdered sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 c. butter
1/2 lb. (8 oz.) cream cheese

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a jellyroll pan (large cookie sheet, with sides).
2. In a mixing bowl, beat eggs on medium to high for 5 minutes. Gradually add white sugar, pumpkin, and lemon juice. Add flour, cinnamon, salt, baking powder and ginger. Spread batter evenly in pan. Sprinkle with pecans on top and press lightly into batter.
3. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until it springs back when touched. Loosen edges with a knife. Turn out onto a dishtowel that has been sprinkled with powdered sugar. Roll up cake and let cool for about 20 minutes.
4. To make filling: Mix powdered sugar, vanilla, butter and cream cheese together until smooth.
5. When pumpkin roll is cool, unroll and add filling. Re-roll and wrap with foil. Refrigerate until serving.

Ricotta Spinach Pie
1 refrigerated pie crust (Pillsbury is my favorite)

Filling:
10-oz. pkg. frozen, chopped spinach, thawed and drained
1 egg
16-oz container ricotta cheese
8 tbsp. grated parmesan cheese
1/4 c. flour
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
Salt and pepper
1 tbsp. butter

Stir all filling ingredients EXCEPT the butter together and put into the pie shell (a 9-in. pie pan works best). Sprinkle more parmesan over the top; cut up the 1 tbsp. butter into small pieces and dot the top of the pie with it. Bake at 350 degrees for about 50 min. to 1 hr. until top is golden brown.

It's really better to make the Pumpkin Cake Roll the night before you plan to serve it, because it gives the filling plenty of time to set.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The most un-vacationy vacation day

2008-11-18T13:07:00.004-06:00

So, it's 1:07 p.m. on a Tuesday, and I'm at home...on a "vacation day" to do homework. On one hand, that's about the most pathetic thing ever. On the other hand, I am getting a lot done, and I think that if I could have Mythbusters running in the background at work I would get more done there, too. Also, it helps if no one calls you and you're not obligated to answer your emails.

I was inspired to schedule this unrelaxing day after realizing that I only have, like, two classes left before I have all these big projects due, and I have really turned into a slacker this semester so I haven't been paying a lot of attention to schoolwork. (Brock is quite proud of me for this, and gave me a high-five for finally acting "normal" about school.)

Anyway, I spent the morning combing through dozens of sources for my fabulous paper on launching Oreo cookies in India. The good news is that my greatest fear has not yet come true - I haven't found any evidence that Kraft already did this, thus making my paper completely irrelevant. So I think I'm okay. And I typed up my reference list already, so that part is done. AND my literature review is already done...so really I only have 13 more pages to crank out, plus a presentation, by Dec. 6. The bad news is that I do actually need to have a big idea about how to launch Oreo cookies in India, but that, so far, has not happened.

The afternoon is dedicated to the project for my other class, which is about revitalizing the Taster's Choice instant coffee brand. I think if I can get my backgrounder done this afternoon, I'll be pleased. I'm less worried about this project because all the assignments for class have fed into it, so I'm much further along than I am on the Oreo thing.

Perhaps I should eat some Oreos for inspiration. I'm not drinking Taster's Choice because I don't even like coffee. ;)

I did go to Taco Bell for lunch, one of my all-time favorite indulgences when I am stressed out, and I'm amazed at how good my mood is after three hard-shell Taco Supremes. I don't know why or how, but Taco Bell has the best sour cream anywhere, and it makes me happy.

Okay, clearly I am procrastinating...time to get back to homework. Besides, I have to call into work for a phone conference at 2:30 (I told you this was the most un-vacationy vacation day)...

Yes we can!

2008-11-04T23:18:00.001-06:00

And yes we did.

Tonight, I am proud to be an American. Way to go, America. Way to go.

Election excitement

2008-11-02T20:37:00.005-06:00

Full disclosure: I have a minor in Political Science and did my college internship with the State of Indiana, so I am a bit of a political junkie. At least, more so than most people. Even though I find it harder to keep up with the big campaign stories as my life gets fuller and fuller of other things (work, school, husband, kid, Heroes, etc.), election night has always been a special night for me - and the upcoming election feels absolutely, once-in-a-lifetime historic.

I am planning on eating a lot of snacks, and not going to bed until I find out who the President-elect is. I understand this means I might not actually go to bed...and I also understand I might just have to give up and crash at some point. But I'm going to try! While the presidential election is obviously the big story for all of us, it's pretty much the only story here - Barack Obama is from Illinois, of course, and also the races for the other offices affecting our district are pretty uninteresting (I think both our state representative and Congressman will be re-elected fairly easily).

I'm planning to go vote at 6:30 a.m. on Tuesday. The polls open at 6, so theoretically I could go earlier, but I don't think it's actually possible. Brock said he thought if I showed up to vote in my polka-dot pajamas, they might question my mental capacity to cast a ballot. *chuckle* So I'm going as early as I can and hoping for the best. I do think there will be lines (hooray - that means more people will be voting!), but hopefully not that long that early in the morning. Also, we vote at a school, and normally if I try to go before work, I get there during drop-off time and have to park a block away because you can't actually get anywhere near the door to the school...and the jam-up of cars is awful because a bunch of stressed-out moms are trying to get their kids to school and themselves to work.

Normally I would say, "I don't care who you vote for - just vote." But this time I don't really believe that. I feel like the outcome of this election is utterly essential for the righting of our country (and I don't mean "moving right"), and I am horribly nervous that too many people will vote the way I don't want them to vote. (If you read this blog at all, ever, you know I am totally voting for Obama.)

The thing that has disappointed me so much about this campaign is that, prior to it, I was something of a fan of John McCain. I thought he was a pretty cool guy, with an independent streak that seemed to take him in the right direction (campaign finance reform, anti-torture, etc.). He's a war hero, for pete's sake, so I thought he knew what he was talking about when it came to national defense. Also, he's funny, and in his several appearances on The Daily Show I always thought he came off smart, with a clever sense of humor. Four years ago, when I was so impressed with Barack Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention, Brock actually said to me, "What if he's running against McCain in 4 years? Who will you vote for?" And I said, first, "It'll never happen," and then, "I really don't know." So I was actually really looking forward to the showdown between him and Obama, as I thought it would be full of really stimulating discussions that would make us all better-informed and provide lots of food for thought.

So the thing I hate is that I feel like John McCain, who I used to think was a cool guy that I might have even considered voting for, totally sold out. First, he hired a bunch of the same doofuses who did such a hack job on him in the 2000 election (which, by the way, was horrible, and those people should be ashamed of themselves). Then, he started moving right on all kinds of stuff he'd previously had a different opinion about (stem-cell research, for example). Then, he picked a completely unqualified running mate, and in my opinion, he did it only because she's a woman and he wanted to attract those disgruntled Hillary voters - which is completely the wrong kind of affirmative action.

(Sidebar: if he was dead-set on picking a woman, I can't believe there weren't any better-qualified options than Sarah Palin. I mean, really. It's a bit insulting to me as a woman that this is the best we could do. What about Elizabeth Dole? She seems to have her act together, even though apparently her latest campaign ads for Senate are way out of line.)

I just feel like, at some point, John McCain just decided that darn it, he really wanted to win, and he would do whatever it took to win, and screw everything else (like principles). That really disappoints me, because one of the things I've always liked about him is that I felt like he said what he really thought about things. I don't think he's been doing that in this campaign - which makes me nervous, because I think one of two things could happen IF he wins. One is that he'll get into office and turn into the old John McCain, which would make me feel somewhat better (though still completely depressed), but would probably cheese off all the right-wingers who voted for him. The other is that he'll keep taking advice and guidance from these dorks who are running his mess of a campaign, and we'll be even worse off than we already are. Neither of those is very good - one says he's completely unpredictable and the other says he's under the influence of bad advisors.

That's why I'm not voting for him. I know that if Barack Obama wins, he won't be able to do all the stuff he says he's going to do (no President can ever do all the stuff he says he's going to do while he's campaigning, but he has to say it...I mean, who would vote for a guy who said, "You know, I'd love to solve the health care crisis in this country, but frankly, folks, I don't think it can be done in four years"?). He'll probably disappoint me somehow. But I truly believe that, overall, he's a steadier presence in a time that calls for a steady presence, and that he's still idealistic enough to believe things can be better and he can help make them that way.

So really, go vote. If there's a line, wait through it. And think really, really hard about whom you're supporting, because in this election, more than any other in my lifetime at least, it really, really matters.

Baby shower recipes

2008-11-02T13:45:00.003-06:00

I've been meaning to post these for a few days, but it's been rather busy to say the least. And Friday night, I was so tired from the week that I fell asleep at 8:30. *chuckle*

Anyway, the baby shower menu seemed to be a great success, so I thought I would share the recipes I used. I'm sharing the recipes in their original quantities; I multiplied the amounts several times over to feed the big crowd we had here on Tuesday!

Tomato Basil Sauce
This is adapted from a Rachael Ray recipe. The only difference is that she uses 20 leaves of fresh basil and I only had dried. I made three times this amount for the shower, but I think this recipe would easily serve 6 to 8.

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 (28-0z.) can crushed tomatoes
1 (14-oz.) can diced tomatoes, drained
Salt and pepper
About 1 1/2 tablespoons dried basil

Heat a medium pot on the stove over medium heat. Add extra-virgin olive oil, garlic and onion. Let onions cook with garlic slowly over 15 minutes. Be careful not to brown the onions; just keep an eye on the heat and stir the onions frequently. After 15 minutes, stir in tomatoes and raise heat to medium-high. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in basil and heat through. Serve over pasta.

Parmesan Cream Sauce
This is adapted from an Emeril recipe. If you want the original, go here. Supposedly it serves 4, but I have doubts; it's not that much sauce. I made 6 times this much for the shower, but I did have a lot of leftovers.

6 tablespoons unsalted butter (I only doubled this for the huge amount I made; it's a lot of butter)
1 shallot, minced
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (although I think it would probably work okay with fresh grated regular parmesan...)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground black pepper

Melt butter in a medium sauce pan over medium-high heat. Add shallots and sautee until tender. Add cream and bring to a boil. Cool until sauce has reduced slightly, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in cheese until melted and well-blended. Serve over pasta.

Pasta Bar
Tomato Basil Sauce
Parmesan Cream Sauce
Grilled chicken, sliced
Cooked shrimp
Sauteed veggies: green, red and yellow peppers; mushrooms; red onion
Bow-tie pasta
Whole grain penne pasta
Parmesan cheese
Mixed green salad with croutons and various dressings
Dinner rolls

Dutch Apple Pie
I have had this recipe since approximately 9th grade, when I learned it in Mrs. Stephen's Foods class. I made it the first time Brock came to my house for dinner when we were 15. We weren't far enough in our relationship yet for him to tell me he didn't like apple pie, so I just assumed he didn't like MY apple pie. *chuckle* But Hannah likes this one.

Pie crust (I use Pillsbury refrigerated pie crusts)
4 c. sliced Granny Smith apples
1/2 c. sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
3/4 c. flour
1/3 c. soft butter
1/2 c. sugar

Place pie crust in 9-in. pie pan and flute the edges. Heap apples in crust. Mix 1/2 c. sugar and cinnamon; sprinkle over apples. Make a crumb mixture of the sugar, flour and butter. Sprinkle evenly over the sugar-cinnamon mixture, covering the apples completely. Bake at 375 degrees for 50 min. or until bubbly and brown. (Extra-good when served warm with ice cream, but tastes good cold, too.)

Punch
Brock's mom introduced me to this. I have no idea what to call it, but it was a very big hit at the party. Double it for a crowd.

2 liter bottle of Canada Dry Ginger Ale
Country Time Lemonade Mix (measured to the top line in the cap)

Be careful when you mix it together, because the reaction is rather explosive. :)

I also made Garlic Onion Cheese Dip with crackers.

And finally, I had a LOT of leftover dinner rolls. I just baked the Pillsbury frozen dinner rolls, and after a couple of days we still had several left and they were starting to go stale. So yesterday I made bread pudding with them - and they made GREAT bread pudding. So here's that recipe.

Bread Pudding
Hannah really loved this.

4-5 c. soft bread crumbs (just tear up whatever bread you have)
2 c. milk, scalded with 1/4 c. butter
1/2 c. sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 t. salt
1 t. cinnamon
1 c. chopped apple (I usually use apple instead of raisins, but just use raisins if that's what you prefer)

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Place bread crumbs in 1 1/2 or 2-qt. baking dish. Blend in remaining ingredients - start with the milk, because it helps make room for the other things. Place baking dish in 9x13 pan of hot water, about 1 in. deep. Bake 40-45 minutes or until knife inserted 1 in. from the edge of the pan comes out clean. (If you have a good glaze recipe, feel free to use it.)

I love good food!

A success!

2008-10-28T22:29:00.003-05:00

The baby shower went great! Dinner was ready on time...people had fun...Jen got lots of great presents...and Hannah had a terrific time entertaining everyone. Everyone fit in the house, and we had plenty of food. And it's only 10:30 and I have all the dishes done, and everything cleaned up. I am rather proud I pulled it off. :)

La di da di, we likes to party

2008-10-27T23:51:00.002-05:00

I can't remember what song that's from, but it seems to me it's from sometime in the 80s. *chuckle*

Anyway, tomorrow is a big day at our house because I am hosting a baby shower for my friend Jen, who is due to have a baby girl in January. I really love my friend Jen, and when she told me she was pregnant one of the first things I said was, "I want to host a baby shower for you at my house." See, we work together, and I thought it would be nice to have all the women we work with over for dinner - which is a bit nicer than standing around our office just eating cake.

So, 25 people are coming over tomorrow. I think our house can handle it, but it's a bit bigger crowd than I originally anticipated when I had this brilliant idea. ;)

Also, I am cooking. I wanted to cook from the beginning, because I like cooking - especially for parties. I think good food is one of the great uniting forces in the world. But I've also never cooked for 25 people before, so hopefully we don't run out. We're having a pasta bar (two kinds of pasta, two kinds of sauce, veggies, chicken and shrimp) and then people are bringing bunches of desserts and appetizers (I made one of each, but I'm not crazy enough to try to do all the desserts and appetizers by myself, too). Tonight I made more pasta sauce than I have ever made in my life. Our refrigerator is literally full of pasta sauce...to the point where, when I was looking for something in the fridge this evening, Brock said, "It's behind the sauce," and we both cracked up. I also made apple pie, garlic onion dip, cooked 2.75 lbs. of chicken and chopped a LOT of vegetables.

I'm very excited to have this party, though - I think it will be really fun, and as long as everyone fits in the house and we don't run out of food, I'll be happy. :)

And now, as it is midnight and I have to get up and go to work early in the morning to get ready for 5 1/2 straight hours of meetings...I am going to bed.

Note, if you are coming to the shower: I didn't get around to sweeping the porch. So that's just too bad. Try not to notice the leaves and cobwebs. Also, I think I got the chicken a bit dry, but if you put a lot of sauce on it, I'm sure it will be fine. :)

7 things about me

2008-10-16T21:46:00.003-05:00

Thanks to Vic for tagging me! Here are 7 things about me you probably don't know:

1) One of the reasons I'm glad Vic tagged me is that I like talking about myself. I know that's supposed to be a bad thing, but it's true. I like talking to other people about themselves, too...but I am a sucker for those emails where you fill out four jobs you've had or what you eat for breakfast or whatever, and then send it on to all your friends. I know no one cares what I eat for breakfast, but there's something fun about writing down things like that. (For the record, this morning I had oatmeal mixed with granola, brown sugar, cinnamon and dried cranberries - a concoction of my own creation that I call "oatnola.")

2) I do not keep liquor in my house. This is because I like it very much, especially vodka, and I am concerned about the possibilities if I had easy access to it all the time. Because I am a comfort eater, I think it stands to reason I would be a comfort drinker, so it's just better not to tempt myself.

3) The top 4 days in my life have been the day I got engaged, my wedding, the birth of my daughter, and when the Indianapolis Colts won the Super Bowl. The 5th best day in my life will be when Barack Obama wins the presidency. I'm excited for that.

4) I harbor a secret desire to be a stand-up comedian. I won't ever, ever do it, and in fact have never tried, but it's the fantasy job I go to in my mind when my real job really gets on my nerves. Of course, since this is not grounded in reality, in my daydreams I am already wildly successful as a comedian and also never have to travel. :)

5) I think I might only want one kid. I am just so incredibly happy with the amazing one I have, and I really, right now, feel absolutely no desire to expand our family further. (Sorry, parents.) Also, I strongly doubt my ability to handle any more kids - it would require seriously compromising the attention I can give to my husband and my career, and I'm really not thrilled about that prospect. The poor cats are already getting the shaft. This is not to say that I wouldn't adapt if modern medicine should happen to fail me.

6) I have devolved in my organizational skills. I used to be hyper-organized. Now I can't really face filing. Brock does all of it at home, and at work I only do it when the piles of paper on my desk get to the point where I can't remember what's in them. I also haven't balanced our checkbook in approximately 4 years, or maybe more, because banking online is awesome. But Brock handles that too. I never keep receipts. My email inboxes (both personal and work) are muddled disasters of old messages that I will never use, but they're so out of control that it would take too much time to clean them up. I hate this about myself. But I also have to let some stuff go.

7) I am really proud that we moved out of Indiana and are making a life for ourselves here. I will always love the place I grew up, but I really love my home now, too. And when I think about the fact that we moved here when we were 22 and didn't know anybody at all, I am amazed at what we've done since then. I can't believe it never occurred to me to be nervous about moving away from everyone we knew. Now I would be absolutely terrified to move, but I can't really think of anywhere I'd rather live, either.

That's it from me. Now, I tag Robin and Brock to talk about themselves on their blogs, too! This is fun!

OhmyGodyouguysNKOTBwasAWESOME!

2008-10-05T22:58:00.008-05:00

I wrote the title of the post that way in hopes you would read it really fast and squealy, kind of like a preteen girl would say it. Because that's totally how I was feeling on Saturday night at the New Kids on the Block concert.

In short: I screamed my fool head off and had a fantastic time. My friend Lisa came up from Indiana for the show and spent two hours laughing at me screaming my fool head off, especially when I yelled, "I love you, Joey!" at the top of my lungs. But I meant it. And I'm sure he heard me. Besides, we went with three other girls, and at least one of them was screaming her fool head off, too. So it wasn't just me.

They sounded good. They looked great. Our seats were perfect. And I had a completely crappy week at work, so I needed something ridiculous and fun, and finding out I remembered every lyric to songs I hadn't even heard in almost 20 years was just what the doctor ordered. :)

Seriously...who can't get into some Hangin' Tough? Who doesn't want to scream like a maniac when their favorite group from childhood is on stage and actually sounding good, and dancing just like they did in 1990 (hello, penguin dance from The Right Stuff!)? Who doesn't think Joey McIntyre is SMOKIN' HOT?

I had the BEST time. I was a little hoarse after the concert and I didn't care. I laughed. I swooned. I danced. I waved my hands in the air like I just didn't care. I sang every word to every song at the top of my lungs. And I wasn't even drunk (unlike this girl in front of us, who came back after last call going, "You guys, THERE IS NO MORE ALCOHOL. THERE IS NO MORE ALCOHOL"...something that certainly did not happen the last time I saw NKOTB...)!

Here are some photo highlights.

Here is my ticket (that lovely background is one of our placemats...I could have cropped it out but just didn't feel like it):

This is a blurry camera phone picture of the main stage. They're singing and dancing there, but you can't see them because stage lighting is not nice to camera phones:

And this is a blurry camera phone picture of when they were on their "second stage," which was a little turntable thing in the middle of the crowd. If I had been next to them, I think I would have peed my pants. Or perhaps I would have tried to grope Joey McIntyre:

NKOTB forever, baby. I wish I could have gone back again the next night to see them. LOVE THEM.

Don't rain on my nostalgia parade, either. I won't have it. Any malicious comments will not be approved. But I can totally take good-natured teasing. I probably deserve it. :)

Okay, fine, I admit it

2008-09-29T21:32:00.005-05:00

I am totally psyched for the New Kids on the Block concert on Saturday. I am. I can't wait. I know I am being a total dork, and that I am not 10 anymore, but neither are these guys:Quite simply, they are hot. And we're all legal now, which makes loving them rather odd - unlike when I was actually 10, and the furthest my imagination would stretch was holding hands, perhaps kissing on the beach, and then having an amazingly extravagant wedding at which all my friends would be jealous that I was marrying Joey and they weren't. And then I would go on tour with NKOTB as their bass guitarist, and all the screaming fans would be jealous that I was married to Joey and they weren't, and I would have to have private security because of all the death threats. Nevermind that I was 10, don't like the beach, and also never learned to play the bass guitar. And didn't have a chance of marrying Joey McIntyre. (Note to Brock: I think things turned out okay anyway.)

I have been listening to their new CD, The Block, in the car on a continuous loop for about three weeks. That is, when Hannah's not in the car, because these are not the NKOTB of yore - most of the song themes are not kid-friendly. This is because the Kids are not kids anymore, either...and I daresay their imaginations grew up the same way mine did. I, however, would not sing about some of this stuff on a CD my mom was probably going to listen to. Or I would just tell her not to listen to it. There's really no bad language, but I also don't want my three-year-old singing this, either.

Anyway, I am in no position to judge whether the CD is any good. I enjoy it, and only have to skip a couple of songs (I know we're all adults now, but there are just some things I cannot listen to my beloved New Kids sing. I have my limits, and I need to preserve a little bit of the innocent puppy love I had for them ca. 1988). I thought I would try to critically evaluate the songs, but the fact is that it just takes me back to a much simpler time in my life, before I realized that it does no good to dream of marrying Joey McIntyre, and I would have probably loved listening to the CD even if it was terrible. (For the record, I think it's actually pretty good. I just don't know if I'm objective enough to state that it is pretty good.)

So I am totally going to see them in concert on Saturday night. Unlike when I was 11, I will drive myself to the concert, and I will be meeting up with some girlfriends at a bar beforehand (don't worry, I will drink responsibly). Also unlike when I was 11, my friend Julie's mom will not have made sandwiches for us all to eat after the show (big shout out to Julie's mom, who deserves some kind of award for taking a bunch of insane preteens to a New Kids concert - especially when we had lawn seats and had to get there hours early to wait in line). However, just like when I was 11, I will probably scream myself hoarse.

Unlike when I was 11, my husband will be waiting to laugh at me when I come home. :)

Homework. Meh.

2008-09-28T19:46:00.003-05:00

I am four weeks into the school year, which means that homework is now starting to pile up in earnest. There's reading. There are projects to start working on. (My professor yesterday had the nerve to ask if anyone "was encountering any issues" in working on our final projects - which are not due until December. The issue I'm encountering is having professors who think you might actually work on a project that's not due for three more months this far in advance. Who has time for that??)

My project topics this semester are...if not quite interesting, at least intriguing. One is to "reinvigorate" the Taster's Choice brand. The other is to market Oreos to people in India. While "Oreos to India" sounds like some misguided relief program, I think it will be really interesting to learn more about Indian culture and marketing segments; figuring out how to get them to purchase a cookie (although it is admittedly a delicious cookie) is kind of secondary for me.

The Taster's Choice thing is in another world entirely, as I think the idea of the project is really cool, but having to work on a brand I've never even tried (and won't, as I don't drink coffee!) is turning out to be really challenging. I'm having a hard time paying attention to it. I am drawing heavily on my first semester of grad school, where I had to work very hard to care about Gain laundry detergent, which I had also never tried before. I have since tried it, as I bought two bottles to use as visual aids for my presentation, but a year later I haven't even finished the second bottle. If I end up buying Taster's Choice to use as a visual aid, I have no idea what I will do with it - because everyone I've told about this project has said, "Wow, they still make Taster's Choice?"

I guess the upside is that I could be a hero to Nescafe and give them the blueprint for bringing Taster's Choice back from wherever it's been since the 1990s.

I'm rambling because I'm avoiding the draft of my situation analysis. Must go do real work now. :)

I hate sand flies

2008-09-24T21:20:00.002-05:00

Last week, I attended my company's annual sales meeting on a lovely island on the Gulf side of Florida. There were palm trees, and thankfully no hurricanes. Despite the warning signs posted all over the place we were staying, I did not encounter any alligators. And they have lizards the way we have squirrels here in the upper Midwest, which was kind of a fun change. I like lizards.

But they have sand flies, also called no-see-ums, also called by me the Most Evil Insects on the Planet, and that's coming from someone who is allergic to mosquito bites and has often said that the question of their existence would be the most important question I could ask God.

I have now had dozens and dozens of sand fly bites for more than a week. They have not changed at all in this time. They look the same as they did when I got them. They are as itchy as they were when I got them. And I'm starting to worry about the effect of what I feel is probably an unreasonable amount of Benadryl accumulating in my system. Benadryl is the only thing that makes them bearable, so I have been taking two to three pills every single day for a week (I didn't have any Benadryl with me on the trip and no way to get any, or I would have started popping antihistamines even sooner).

So...if anybody has any ideas for what to do to make these horrible things go away - or any convenient excuses I can give the next time someone tells me I have to travel anywhere near a beach - please let me know. Itchy legs make me really cranky. And I have enough other stuff going on in my life to make me cranky (like the homework I am not doing while I write this post), so eliminating even one source of crankiness would be most welcome.

Dip it - dip it good

2008-09-12T20:59:00.002-05:00

At work, I am becoming somewhat famous for my dip recipes. Once a month, we have "birthday day," when everyone in the department brings in food to celebrate whomever's birthday falls that month. (Luckily, every month has at least one birthday in it.) Then we just eat all day and compare recipes. It's excellent for morale. :)

Anyway, I'm becoming known for dips because usually about all I can muster the night before birthday day is stirring. I would love to bake or make something more complicated for my lovely coworkers, but this is life. So pretty much every month, I bring dip. Sometimes I really take the shortcut and just throw a mix in some sour cream and call it a day. But occasionally I put in a little extra effort.

That said, here are my three favorite birthday day dip recipes. The first one on the list is one I just tried for the first time today, and it was super good.

Garlic Onion Dip
Adapted from Simple & Delicious magazine (I think!)
2-8 oz. pkgs. cream cheese, softened
3 green onions, green parts only, chopped
2 strips cooked and crumbled turkey bacon
3 tbsp. apricot preserves
1 tsp. minced garlic
Dash of pepper

Really good on whole wheat crackers.

Spicy Avocado Dip
From kraftfoods.com; EVERYONE loves this one, and it makes a lot
2 medium avocados, mashed
16 0z. sour cream
1/4 cup chopped green onions (about 4-5 onions)
1 envelope ranch dressing mix
1 tbsp. lime juice (I just squeeze half a lime without trying very hard)
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper

This is good on everything - veggies, Wheat Thins, other crackers...but it's the best on blue corn chips.

Salsa Onion Cheese Dip
I think I made this one up.
16 oz. sour cream
1 envelope onion soup mix
About 1/2 cup salsa
About 1/4 cup shredded cheddar jack cheese

The best on Fritos Scoops...but works on other chips and veggies, too.

I would rather eat chips and dip than cake. I know that's weird, but I can back this up - because there's always cake on birthday day, and I hardly ever eat it because I'm full of chips and dip.

It's come to this

2008-09-08T20:52:00.004-05:00

This is what I had for dinner:

Please allow me to explain how this came to be. This was my day today:

Get up only 15 minutes late, which is a big improvement over the 30-40 minutes I usually waste trying to convince myself to get out of bed, especially now that it is totally dark at 5:30 in the morning again.
Get ready for work.
Go wake Hannah up, who says, "I just want to lay here and cover up and close my eyes." Totally agree with Hannah but make her get out of bed anyway.
Manage to get Hannah ready, toast her breakfast and go wake Brock up.
Finish getting dressed for work while Brock brushes Hannah's teeth and puts her shoes on.
Lug bunch of stuff out to car.
Come back for Hannah. Drop at daycare very late, like 7:45, despite "early" start to the day.
Get to work at 8:20. Supposed to be at work at 8:00, but never happens.
Turn on computer. Get coffee (frappucino, actually).
Drink coffee while spending an hour and a half combing through 226 (no kidding) unread emails. Do not read all emails. Feel annoyed at email culture.
Go to meetings from 10 to noon.
Go for sushi with friend. (High point of work day, to be sure. Spicy tuna rolls are awesome.)
Go to meeting from 2 to 3.
Try to get work done from 3 to 4. Not very successful.
Go for performance review with boss at 4:00. Boss is stuck in other meeting. Wait 15 minutes for boss to show up. Realize that review is going to last past 5:00 now, which starts customary "I will be late picking Hannah up from daycare" panic.
Have very nice review. Learn that I possibly laugh too much (I do have a tendency to laugh all the time, which I suppose does make it sound like I think what I just said was a joke - even though I've always thought it was charming and disarming), but am otherwise quite capable, well-respected and doing a good job. Need to work on establishing strategy, which is part of the new job and was not part of the old one. All in all, pretty good.
Get out of review at 5:20. Get to car, in the steady rain, at 5:25. Realize I will probably be late picking Hannah up, and if I'm not, she will for sure at least be the last kid at daycare. Again.
Deal with slow, annoying drivers for 34.5 minutes. Pull into daycare at approximately 5:59:30 and race to door in continuing rain.
Feel very happy to see Hannah, who's happy to see me.
Drive home. Get call from Brock that he has to work late and will not be home till after 9:00.
Realize that there is not enough time to make the taco casserole I'd planned to make with Hannah this evening.
Give up and get fish sticks and Smiles out of the freezer. Realize we eat a lot of meals that can be dipped in ketchup. But it has been a long time since we had Smiles, and Hannah likes them, and they are tasty. We like our dinner even if it's sort of ridiculous for a grown-up to eat fish sticks and shaped potatoes.
Give Hannah bubble bath. Fun. :)
Watch Dr. Jiggle & Mr. Sly episode of Veggie Tales TV show on DVR with Hannah. Sing along to "The Hole in the Bottom of the Sea" at the end.
Get Hannah to brush teeth.
Read two stories, Color Kittens and Goodnight, Little Bear, both of which are really old Little Golden Books and also kind of annoying after the 87th reading. But still enjoyable because Hannah likes them.
Sort laundry. Start washer, only to realize that there is still a load of laundry sitting in the washer from two days ago that needs to be dried.
Put laundry in dryer. Put more laundry in washer.
Blog instead of doing reading for school, which started last week.

So...it's been kind of a crazy day. A "fish sticks and shaped potatoes" kind of day.

GO-bama!

2008-08-28T22:05:00.002-05:00

You guys, we have GOT to elect this man. We've just GOT to.

Obama's acceptance speech was fantastic. Even the Republican operative/contributing analyst on NBC said as much. (And then we stopped listening to analysts, because they are generally annoying, and I'd rather just formulate my own thoughts.)

I have so many favorite lines: "Eight is enough!" "Change doesn't come from Washington; change goes to Washington." "America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this." It didn't make me cry the way his "This is the moment" speech in June, but it made me happy and hopeful. And it was really wonderful to feel that way.

His speech was smart, tough and inspiring. I think he's smart, tough and inspiring. More than 80,000 people showed up just to hear the guy talk. We've GOT to elect him.

File this under "that figures"

2008-08-27T21:23:00.003-05:00

On Monday, I bought myself flowers for the first time ever.

On Tuesday, buckets of dozens of free bouquets of cutflowers showed up where I work.

Not that I'm really complaining...I just find it funny.

Flowers

2008-08-25T22:40:00.003-05:00

One more thing - to combat my crabbiness, I bought myself flowers for the first time ever today. I happen to live with a lovely person who quite often buys/sends me flowers - much more often than my friends' husbands seem to send them flowers. And he usually sends them to me at work, where I have to pick them up from the reception desk and then carry them all through the building back to my desk, while people stop me and ask me who sent me flowers and why, and comment about how pretty the flowers are and that their husbands/partners/significant others never send them flowers. This, overall, makes me feel even more loved and spoiled than one might typically feel when receiving flowers.

However, today I bought a $5 bouquet of the sunniest, cheeriest yellow cut mums at Target all for myself, and I would highly recommend it. I totally cheered up just looking at their happy yellow color. Than Hannah and I brought them home and I cut the stems way down and stuffed them in this cool purple vase that I have, and the combo of the bright yellow flowers bursting out of the purple vase was somehow even cheerier.

I got my money's worth. :)

A thankful heart is a happy heart

2008-08-25T19:47:00.004-05:00

So, the title of this post is a song that's in the Madame Blueberry episode of Veggie Tales. It's a lesson about being thankful for what you have.

After several viewings of this episode, and having the aforementioned song stuck in my head for days and days and days, I have decided to actually listen to it. This is because I have been super-crabby about work for the past few days. (I think I have done a good job controlling the crabbiness outside of work.)

Suffice it to say that my work life is changing again and, after just taking my new job a couple of months ago, my responsibilities are shifting a bit. Although the logical part of my brain sees that there may be some good opportunities lurking in this situation, the illogical part of my brain would just like things to stay the same for 5 minutes so I have a chance to get good at what I'm doing without having to add more new stuff on top of new stuff. That's the part of my brain that's been making me crabby for the past week.

So I have decided to try very hard to be like Madame Blueberry, and be thankful for what I have: a good job at a company that's been around a long time (not to mention the wonderful non-work things I have, like my awesome family and good friends and a nice roof over my head). This is not to say I have totally banished the crabbiness, but my hope is that it will help my attitude recover a bit.

Also, I realized that school starts next week. Instead of panicking, I am also trying very hard to be thankful that I have the means to advance my education and learn new things.

I don't think this rosy view will last very long, as I am cynical and sarcastic by nature, but at least I'm making an effort here.

I am still not, however, thankful for what I have to go do now, which is work on my budgets for the next fiscal year. I just can't be thankful for budgeting. It is one of my least favorite things.

But I'm thankful for everything else. Really.

The Dark Knight according to a clown-phobe

2008-08-17T16:09:00.004-05:00

I did it. I went to see The Dark Knight. I know I said I wasn't going to see it in the theater, but a few factors were at play here. One was, we had babysitters available on Saturday night and we wanted to take advantage of that. Another was, just about everyone I know has seen the movie and I was really starting to feel left out. And the last one was, Brock told me he thought I could handle it, and that he didn't think my clown phobia was necessarily as debilitating as I might portray. (It's true that I don't generally run screaming from clowns, but they do freak me out pretty severely; still, he thought I would be okay and promised to warn me as much as possible about parts where I might want to cover my eyes.)

So, here is my review of The Dark Knight, from a clown-hater's perspective:

Heath Ledger is the best Joker ever. And he really didn't frighten me much from a clown perspective - partially because I just kept telling myself it was Heath Ledger under all that makeup. Also, he was just a scary character, and would have been whether or not he was in creepy makeup. That was one really bad Bad Guy - the scariest kind of bad guy, who's not motivated by anything other than wanting to create chaos.
I did spend a LOT of time hiding from clown masks, though. (There are three things I'm really afraid of: clowns, masks and storms. This movie had two out of three.) I felt like I missed a lot of the movie because of it. Brock was really good about warning me when I might not want to watch, but I felt like that happened pretty often.
Two-Face actually freaked me out more than anything in the movie. And since he figures prominently in the last quarter of the movie, I didn't watch a lot of it. I listened to it, at least.
I thought the film, overall, was really excellent. It didn't feel like a comic book movie at all. It just felt like a scary movie about Good vs. Evil and Order vs. Chaos. So I can see why people are saying it's one of the best movies ever. The story was really good, and there was a lot of suspense, and the chase scene through Lower Wacker (called Lower Fifth in the movie) was awesome.
Speaking of Lower Wacker, it was cool watching the movie and recognizing all the stuff in Chicago.
The "disappearing pencil trick" was amusing. Disturbing, but amusing.
Maggie Gyllenhaal was way better as Rachel Dawes than Katie Holmes was. Sorry, Katie.
Christian Bale is hot.
It should have an R rating. Brock and I were talking about this, and we're sure it got a PG-13 because there's virtually no bad language and you really don't see a lot of blood or anything. But it's pretty intense and scary. I don't see how anything with that many bombs and fire and scary stuff can NOT be rated R.

Overall, I'm glad I saw it. I wouldn't say I enjoyed it entirely, but I did get to see what all the fuss was about and agree that it was deserved. I don't think I need to see it again anytime soon...or maybe ever...because there were just a lot of parts that made me really uncomfortable. But that's just because of my own personal phobias and has nothing to do with the movie. *chuckle* If you don't have a problem with clowns or clown masks, and you're one of the five people on the planet who hasn't seen the movie yet, then you should totally go see it.

If you do have a problem with clowns, just get it on DVD and watch it with someone who's already seen it so they can tell you when to cover your eyes. :)

I HATE storms

2008-08-04T20:51:00.003-05:00

Hate them, hate them, hate them. I don't care how old I get, I have come to terms with the fact that I will always be terrified of bad storms. Last year's almost-tornado experience didn't help this; in fact, I think it probably made it worse, because now I kind of know what I'm really up against. And tonight we've had bad storms.

So tonight, Brock is stuck in D.C. because his flight home to Chicago was canceled (see: bad storms above). And we've had tornado warnings and sirens going off and everything, and it's just me and Hannah. And when the most calm person in your house is the 3-year-old, you have a problem.

I have to say I think I did a pretty good job faking calm. We just went and played in the basement for an hour or so, and Hannah had a delightful time. She just kept saying, "Wow, it's pretty stormy outside, huh?" She totally didn't care at all. Why can't I be like that? I was a basket case. I'm quite impressed with her.

Despite my inner panic, I'm actually pretty impressed with me, too. I don't think Hannah had any idea how scared I was when the sirens went off.

I HATE storms. Hate them. I hope they're done for the night. We're down to a "severe thunderstorm watch" now, so hopefully things will calm down some.

Work, schmerk

2008-08-01T21:12:00.002-05:00

Today was the third day in a row that somebody cheesed me off after 4 p.m., causing me to do additional work that made me NOT leave at 4:30, which is supposed to be our official "quitting time" but really hardly ever is. But today I really wanted to leave at 4:30, and I didn't get to. Leaving anywhere after 4:45 gives me stress about getting to pick Hannah up from daycare in time...leaving at 5:10 makes me positively twitchy. Leaving at 5:20 means she is for sure the last kid at daycare because I can't roll in any earlier than 5:59 (pick up has to be by 6:00).

I used to leave work by 4:45 or so every day. It doesn't work that way anymore - not with the new job. Today I really wanted to leave earlier because we had no food in our house and I wanted to make a mad dash into the store to buy milk (because we were completely out) and something for dinner (because last night we had fish sticks and today we didn't have any other options). It worked out okay - Hannah and I just made a quick trip to the store after I picked her up - but it's frustrating. And I would have been able to leave on time every day since Wednesday if people would just not give me trouble. Argh.

So we finally got home, and Hannah and I had a lovely time making pizza. We had dinner, she got a bath, we watched Veggie Tales and then we read two bedtime stories. My outlook on life was definitely improving. Then I sat down with the computer to do some mindless reading, and my computer won't load any of the blogs I like to read. I can live without most of them, except for Go Fug Yourself. I haven't read it since early this week and it makes me happy, and I was looking forward to the comfort of noting that, even if work bothers me, at least I've never walked out of the house looking half as bad as some of the people on that blog.

So now I'm annoyed again and there's nothing I can do about it, because my tech support is out of town.

Argh.

In memory

2008-07-23T20:29:00.002-05:00

I learned this morning that my grandmother passed away yesterday. We weren't at all close, which is something I regret, and I am sadder than I thought I would be now that she's really gone. I thought I had long ago worked through the fact that I wasn't going to have a grandma the same way other people have grandmas, and that when the end did come it would just sort of feel like the final detail in a relationship that wasn't really a relationship at all. But I am sad that things were the way they were.

Still, I've spent the day reflecting on some of the happy memories I do have of my grandma, and even if you didn't know her, these are amusing. And they're a fun way to honor her and to remember that once upon a time, things were different. Here we go:

To the best of my knowledge, my grandmother invented "stuffed celery," which is raw celery stuffed with a combination of cream cheese, chopped onion, pepper and more salt than seems reasonable. It is one of the great taste sensations of all time, and I believe could be considered one of my grandma's best contributions to society. To this day, it does not feel like Christmas or New Year's to me if I do not have stuffed celery to eat.
Aside from the triumph of stuffed celery, my grandmother was not a very good cook. My dad has great stories about her trying to make mashed potatoes with melted ice cream because she was out of milk, or SPAM sandwiches with that weird jelly stuff still on them. But my own personal memory of my grandma and cooking revolves almost entirely around Jell-O. I hate Jell-O, and really pretty much always have, but she was one of the great supporters of Jell-O's sales figures when I was little. I vividly remember one of her kitchen cabinets was literally filled with boxes of every kind of Jell-O.
One year, she gave me a kazoo on my sister's birthday (you know, so I wouldn't feel left out). I know my parents were greatly displeased by this, but I thought the kazoo was pretty awesome. I think she may have also been the source of the harmonica I had, but never learned how to play properly. Harmonicas sound horrible if you don't know what you're doing, but they are pleasantly noisy if you're 6.
She was a great beer-drinker. When I was very little I said to her (and I have no idea where I got this notion), "Grandma, ladies don't drink beer." And she laughed and took another pull from the bottle. *chuckle*
One year she gave my dad pajamas for Christmas. My dad hates pajamas, and I told her so. In front of everyone. From this experience I learned that it sometimes it is better not to say what you're thinking, even if it's true...and this life lesson serves me well to this day.
Another food-related memory: my grandma's lake cottage is the only place in my life I ever remember having Tang to drink, and it was horrible. On the plus side, though, she would get those little individual-serving boxes of all the super-sugary cereal we never were allowed to have at home, so we got to eat Coco Puffs and Sugar Crisp and whatever that really sweet honey cereal was that had a frog on the box. That was really awesome, especially for a kid from a decidedly Grape Nuts and Cheerios family.

But the very best thing I have to say about my grandmother, and the thing I will always be most grateful to her for no matter what flaws she might have had as a grandmother, is that she gave the world my dad. And that, my friends, is an amazing contribution. :)

KO, baby

2008-07-22T21:39:00.002-05:00

We played Wii Boxing tonight...and I doled out two straight knock-outs to Brock. I am the boxing champion of our household! Woo hoo! All I need now is a big gold belt.

I think it was all my kickboxing training. :)

Let's not talk about my bowling, though...I was doing really well, on my way to pro status, and then I bowled three crummy games in a row. Besides, I think Hannah's gotten the highest score of all of us, anyway...

Busy busy busy

2008-07-19T14:45:00.004-05:00

The last few of weeks have been pretty crazy. I made it through a very rough week at my new job, in which I was convinced I had made a huge mistake and should just go cry in a corner instead. But I came out on the other side of that, and while I'm still kind of overwhelmed and feel like I don't know which way is up, I'm making incremental progress on some things and am starting to feel like I'm accomplishing something.

I had my first business trip with the new job last weekend. Thankfully, it was short - but it also encompassed Saturday and Sunday, so today is my first real day off in a couple of weeks. Also, I came back from the trip with a stomach bug and spent Tuesday lying on the couch eating crackers, 4 at a time, in shifts of every few hours. What was completely bizarre about it was that exactly 24 hours after I started feeling horrible, I got ravenously hungry and ate tacos. And I've been totally fine ever since. Really weird.

Brock is off with some friends this afternoon seeing The Dark Knight, because I refuse to go see it in the movie theater. At some point, I want to see it because it's supposed to be really good - I told Brock I felt like I'd be missing out on a cultural experience if I didn't eventually watch it - but I can't handle it in the theater. Too many scary clowns. And I'm scared of clowns that aren't even supposed to be scary. So Brock's "screening" it for me and when we do eventually watch it together, it'll be on DVD in the safety of our own home, and he can tell me when I need to hide my face.

Hannah has a cold...which stinks...but this morning at 4:45 when she woke up crying we really thought it might be bronchitis, so we'll take the cold. She's been doing all right today. Dimetapp is helping.

And now...I need to go do some stuff for work. Bleh.

Wii!

2008-07-10T22:14:00.004-05:00

We finally got one! Wahoo!

So far we've only played Wii Sports. Hannah's pretty good at bowling. :) I think I'm best at baseball and worst at tennis...Brock seems to be best at golf and bowling.

As soon as my shoulder fully recovers from the rotator cuff injury I suffered last weekend playing boxing on our friend's Wii, I am totally going to use boxing as my new stress relief. It was a better workout than the lame kickboxing class I tried earlier in the summer.

This thing is awesome.

Confessions of a working mom

2008-07-01T22:02:00.004-05:00

My new job is insane. It's insane partially because I think that's just how it's going to be, and partially because I am trying to learn it while simultaneously doing my old job (because there's no one else to do it). I had seven meetings today, and there were two times where two meetings overlapped. It's that kind of crazy. I left work late and Hannah was the last kid left at daycare, which doesn't happen often but still makes me feel like a horrible mother when it does. It's been bugging me all evening.

It occurs to me that because I had a child while still on the upward climb of my career, I have set myself up for many years of internal conflict and guilt over pursuing career advancement. I thought I'd already understood it, but with this job I think I've hit the point where it's really going to be something that weighs on me. While my family will always be the most important thing in the world to me, my career is still important, too. I hope that in the long run this will be a really good example for my daughter - that you can do all the things you want to do, and have success in your own right while also being a good wife and mother. But I think the key is marrying well; that is, marrying someone who supports that, and plays an active role in the daily running of the family. I'm lucky my husband supports my ambition, and that he is an active dad who would never, ever refer to spending time with Hannah as "babysitting." But I still have guilt.

The other day, I was talking to one of my friends, who's expecting a baby. I said to her that I felt like the decision to be a working mom is a catch-22: if you stay home, people may undervalue you because you're not "working" and you may feel like you should be doing more (which is a crock); if you work, some will judge your career dedication negatively, and you'll feel guilty for not staying home (also a crock). None of this is fair, but as my mom always said, "Who ever promised fair?" The answer, now as it was when I wanted a Whistle Pop at the grocery store, is "nobody."

I know that I would not be a very good stay-at-home mom. I mean, I'd be okay at it, but I don't think my daughter would be as well-rounded if she were stuck with me all the time. In fact, judging by the few times we've been on our own for a few days when her dad was traveling, I'd say we'd get pretty sick of each other. I've said a million times that she wouldn't know how to do half the stuff she knows how to do, because it wouldn't occur to me to teach her. We're always so impressed when she starts doing something new - and one of us usually says, "Did you know she could do that?" And then we start working with her at home, too...but it takes a little kick in the pants to get us started. I also know I wouldn't be one of those moms who's really good about arranging activities and crafts and things, and I don't think I'd like "mommy & me" classes very much.

At the same time, I wonder about being a working mom and if my drive for success is going to affect Hannah. She's already good about applying the guilt when I travel, and it's awful. It makes me feel selfish - but really, although we certainly need my salary and it helps a lot, the real reason, deep down, that I work is for me. I need it. I need the interaction with people, and the intellectual stimulation, and the ability to feel like I'm accomplishing something that's just mine. I've said before that I was the first person in my family to graduate college, and I went to college for a reason, and that reason was to have a successful career. So I guess it is a bit selfish. But I also think that's probably okay.

What I can't figure out is why there's guilt, anyway. I mean, who ever said I have to be the one to pick up my kid from day care every day? Who said I'm the one who has to get up first in the morning, and get everyone else moving? Who said I'm the one who has to make dinner? Certainly not my husband, who is more than willing and able to share all these responsibilities. Not my parents, both of whom always worked when I was growing up. Even my grandmas worked. Sometimes I think it's a function of moving to a different geographic area, where there seem to be more stay-at-home moms than I ever encountered where I grew up. I don't think I had any friends when I was younger whose moms didn't work. Everybody's mom worked. They had to, and that was that. So you'd think that moms my age would have purged all that guilt and second-guessing, because even their moms worked and they turned out just fine.

Maybe it's just me. Maybe I just always feel like I should be doing more.

Sorry to be so pensive. I just needed to get all that out.

Am I a grown-up?

2008-06-23T21:09:00.003-05:00

Today I wore a dress to work. I haven't worn (or owned) a dress since approximately my wedding day. I'm not sure why, but for about five years I wouldn't even wear skirts. I think I just decided I was too pale to go without nylons, and nylons just aren't cool. (Sorry, they're just not.) But a few years ago I decided to go back to skirts, and then last weekend I bought a really fabulous summer dress...and so the evolution to Grown-Up Professional Career Woman seems sort of complete.

I even have a hairstyle now - layers, rather than just Long Hair. Wow. Who knew?

Also, I bought shorts for the first time in about five years, too...since shorts that actually have an inseam are back in. Can't do short shorts. Nobody wants to see that. I told my mother I changed out of a dress and into shorts, and I think she about collapsed. *chuckle*

Awww

2008-06-16T20:49:00.004-05:00

I was reading the news on CNN and found this photo from a gay marriage ceremony in San Francisco.

I know this won't please some of my readers (not that I have many readers, but you know what I mean), but I think the picture of those two old ladies getting married is the sweetest thing. They're 87 and 84, for pete's sake; who knows how long they've waited to be able to get married? (Edited: Just read another story that says they've been together 55 years. Whoa.) So congratulations to them, and have some cake for me.

And maybe someday the rest of the country will realize we've got much bigger things to worry about than two people who love each other wanting to make their devotion legal. Nuff said.

From princess to mistress

2008-06-14T15:49:00.002-05:00

If you happen to view my profile, you may notice that my occupation has been changed from "Princess of PR" to "Mistress of Marketing." This is because I've accepted a new job (a promotion!) at the company where I work. I'm quite excited about trying something new...and about recycling loads and loads of magazines from my cubicle that I'm no longer responsible for keeping. :)

I tried to find another royal title that started with M (to maintain the alliterative value I love so much), but all I could come up with was "Marchioness"...and that's not really very well-known or easy to say. So I went with "Mistress" instead. Perhaps not as regal, but still a lot more interesting than "Manager."

I start "transitioning" to my new job (read: starting my new job while still doing my old one) on Monday. I'm moving cubes, which is sort of sad as I am leaving the Best Cube in the Universe for something decidedly less wonderful, but the upshot is that I am really getting rid of a lot of stuff I never needed to keep in the first place. I have to shed the baggage of the old job so there will be room to accumulate baggage from the new one. *chuckle*

So that's my news. If you want more details, email me and I'll tell you...because this is as much as I'm going to say about work in a public forum!

Bummer

2008-06-12T20:30:00.002-05:00

So, one of the things I was REALLY looking forward to after finishing school was being able to go back to kickboxing class. Tonight was the first night. I found out this morning (because I am well-connected) that there's drama going on at the gym, and my regular instructor - who is awesome - was told that her services were no longer needed.

I know of 5 people who dropped out before class even started because of this. (We really love our instructor.) But I thought I'd give it a try, to be fair, and it was disappointingly low-impact. I haven't been to kickboxing for almost four months, and I never even got short of breath. I only stopped twice to take a drink of water. And the class finished 10 minutes early! We used to go 20 minutes over. I think it was probably fine if you'd never done kickboxing before and maybe hadn't worked out in a long time. But it's not enough for me, so I'll be asking for a refund.

Bummer.

Cats can growl

2008-06-11T20:56:00.002-05:00

It's true. When they are truly, really, awfully furious beyond recognition, they growl just like dogs. At least, our cat Lewis does.

See, aside from our human kid, we have two feline kids. And I spent two hours at the animal ER with one of those feline kids last night. Poor Lewis. He's a mess. I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that there was a great deal of cat vomit going on at our house. Not good for us, not good for our carpet and certainly not good for Lewis.

So the poor guy got shoved in his cat carrier at 8:45 last night, and we drove to the animal ER. He was actually quite calm for the first portion of the visit. He just camped out on the scale (where it was learned he'd lost 3/4 of a pound in just a few days) and even let the nurse take his temperature. If you pause to think about how they take cat temperatures, you will be as amazed as I was at his calm nature.

He had a fever, but they couldn't figure out what was wrong. He got x-rays. Nothing. Then he had bloodwork. Nothing serious, except that he was dehydrated. It was decided that he probably had some sort of infection and they would give him an injection of fluids under his skin, as well as an injections of antibiotics and anti-nausea medication.

That's when it all went downhill. I, sitting alone in the exam room reading Cat Fancy - which, by the way, is the most disturbing magazine I have ever read, but it was the only thing in there other than the Veterinarian's Oath - heard noises coming from the back room that sounded vaguely like a cat might be making them, but not really. I've never heard noises like that. The vet came back in and said, "Okay, he's had enough. We can't handle him anymore." I said, "That was MY cat making those noises??" Poor, poor Lewis. He must have been so mad and confused. They brought him back into the room in his cat carrier, and he was FURIOUS. If there's a level beyond furious, that's what he was. And he growled at me. If I hadn't known better, I'd have thought he was a rottweiler. I felt really bad for him.

Since they were unable to give him injections, they sent us home with antibiotic pills and anti-nausea liquid medicine, with instructions that he shouldn't eat or drink anything for the night. It took us about 30 minutes to get him to take his medicines. Brock swaddled him in a towel and did a full body bind so he couldn't get away, while I pried his mouth open and crammed a pill in approximately 87 times. The liquid was marginally easier. Poor Lewis.

He's eaten a little today and seems to be doing a bit better. His nose is cold again (last night it was warm). So hopefully he's on the mend. Thankfully, Hegemon doesn't seem to have gotten it. We think Lewis might have picked up some germs at the vet's office last week, when we had to take him in for his seasonal allergy shot. (Yeah, he has allergies and asthma, too.)

So, does anybody have any good tips for getting a cat to eat pills?

P.S. There was an article in Cat Fancy about alternative medicine for cats. You'll be interested to know that acupuncture can be beneficial, but you shouldn't pursue chiropractic treatment because cats' frames are too small. Seriously - cat acupuncture? Catupuncture? I really, really love our cats, but that magazine freaked me out. Why have so many specialty breeds of cats when there are thousands and thousands of little mutt kitties who need homes? I don't get it. And I am not getting catupuncture for Lewis...unless maybe it would help his asthma? KIDDING!

BARACK OBAMA!!!!

2008-06-03T21:43:00.003-05:00

I just finished watching Barack Obama's speech in Minnesota. It occurs to me:

1) that I may never see another presidential candidate like this in my lifetime.
2) that one day, Hannah is going to ask us about this when she has to write a report for school.
3) that it feels pretty amazing to live through a historic time that's actually positive.
4) that this is the first time I have nearly cried when hearing a presidential candidate speak - because I was inspired, and hopeful, and optimistic, and moved.
5) that I am proud to have voted for this man three times.
6) that I am going to his next campaign event that is anywhere near where we live - and I don't care when it is. I will not miss out on this experience.
7) that Barack Obama is an excellent example of why I always wanted to get into politics - and his rarity is the reason why I didn't do it.
8) that it may be weird to clap and cheer for a political speech while sitting in your living room in your pajamas, but I did it anyway.
9) that this is the first time I've really wanted someone to be president because I believed in him, and not because I just really didn't want the other guy.
10) that I am, for once, extremely proud to be an American.

If he's elected president, Barack Obama certainly won't be able to do everything he wants to do; no president ever can. But he's a once-in-a-lifetime candidate, and he makes me believe things can be better. I'm in awe that I am living through the time in American history when we finally have an African American presidential candidate. I am in awe that it's THIS African American candidate who, even if he were purple, would still be the most inspiring political figure I've ever seen. I feel privileged to be part of this, even if my part is very small.

I can't wait to vote again!

Congratulations Lisa & Sean!

2008-05-22T21:05:00.001-05:00

My best pal Lisa had a baby today! Congratulations to her and her husband, Sean, on beautiful little (er, kind of big, 9-lb.) Cameron Delaney!

CaffeineWatch Update

2008-05-17T17:42:00.002-05:00

You know, I might kick this caffeine thing.

Day one went very well. Day two (Wednesday) was awful. I got a raging headache in the afternoon and, as anyone who's ever had a caffeine headache knows, there is nothing you can do for a caffeine headache. I really wanted a Coke. But I soldiered on, and I was headache-free for Thursday, Friday and today - and I stuck to my "one caffeinated drink per day" self-imposed rule.

I'm not sure I'm ready to cut back further, though...gotta take this slowly. :)

Alice Cooper had it right

2008-05-12T21:56:00.002-05:00

Sing it with me:

Schoooooool's out for summer!

I've been singing that all day, because today was my last day of class! Wahoo! And while I am already sort of regretting the extra time it will take me to finish school because I'm not taking summer classes, I am SO HAPPY I get three and a half months off.

So, congratulations to me (and Brock and Hannah, who had a vested interest) for getting through my first year of grad school. I am 1/3 finished!

And...Saturday we all went to pick up my research report on blog readers (Hannah was excited to see my school). I got 100% on the paper, and my professor encouraged me to submit it for publication to our department's journal. Who knows if it'll get accepted, but I was really excited that she thought it was that good. So...thanks again if you took my survey!

I am pretty sure I'm going to get an A in both of my classes. The research class is a definite, and unless I completely bombed my short final paper and presentation in ethics, I should be okay there too. I was a little miffed that the prof took 4% off my greenwashing paper, because she wrote zero comments on anything other than that I should have used section headings. She never told us we had to have section headings, and anyway, I don't particularly think a lack of section headings is worth 4%. But...I still got an A, after all the heartache (and headaches, and heartburn), so I should probably just be happy, stop trying to be a perfectionist, and get over it. *chuckle*

This means I can start on my list of things to do when school's out. I already ate lunch away from my desk, have been hanging out with my family more, and started making a dent in my magazine pile. Tomorrow I'm going out for sushi (spicy tuna rolls...mmmm). Tomorrow is also going to be the first day of what I'm calling CaffeineWatch 2008, where I try to wean myself off my reliance on caffeinated beverages. For week one of CaffeineWatch 2008, I am going to try to limit myself to one caffeinated drink per day. We'll see how I do.

Also, I might be getting a cold, but I don't even care because...

Schoooooool's out for summer!

Happy Mother's Day!

2008-05-11T20:24:00.004-05:00

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there...including me. :) (I don't think there's anything wrong with giving yourself props for raising a pretty fantastic kid.) Thanks, especially, to my mom for raising me, and to Brock's mom for raising him. You made us both just wacky enough to be perfect for each other. :)

And, especially if you're a mom, check out this blog post on the Cookie magazine website. I just found this one last week, and it does a really good job of explaining why one of my Mother's Day gifts - a day at the spa - is absolutely perfect. Sometimes, moms need to not have to take care of anybody or anything. Time that's all about you becomes this magical reset button that lets you go back to making it all about somebody else with renewed energy.

My family rocks. I'm so glad I get to be a mom, and that I have a husband who appreciates the job I do. He made me a really complicated breakfast just because it's my favorite. How awesome is that?

Damn-delions

2008-05-04T19:57:00.003-05:00

This afternoon, after Hannah got up from her nap (bless her for taking one), we went outside. I got it in my head that I wanted to dig up some of the dandelions around the patio. Our yard (front and back) is completely overrun with dandelions. We easily have 8,000 dandelions more than our closest competitor, but we have had zero chance to do anything about our yard this whole spring. It has been hectic. It's really not our fault. Really.

So, I gave Hannah a trowel and set her to work digging in the dirt in the flower bed, which she loved, and I dug up dandelions:

This (one 5-gallon bucket and two 10-inch pots) is just from immediately around our patio. I hate dandelions. But the view from the back door is significantly better now, and I do think it helped clear my head a bit to attack dandelions for an hour or so.

Maybe it's time to re-brand dandelions as a "bright-flowered, vigorous and hardy groundcover" rather than a weed. Then our yard would be the best one on the block rather than the weediest. :)

My new lucky number

2008-05-04T15:50:00.002-05:00

14 1/2. That's how many pages are in the draft of my ethics paper. Which is, frankly, close enough to 15 for me.

Breathing again

2008-05-03T22:25:00.003-05:00

Okay, because my last post was really whiny and depressing and I don't want everyone to worry about me, I wanted to post again to let everyone know that I got my "second wind" this evening (sans caffeine, even, but probably helped along by the pizza I ordered for dinner - is fat better or worse than caffeine?). I have 11 pages of my paper typed, and only two sections left to go. I am easily going to hit the required 15 pages, and probably even have time to edit the thing so it makes some kind of sense. (I am concerned about the sensibility factor, as most of my work on this has happened after 9 p.m., and let's just say that's not really when I do my best thinking.)

So...I will live. And I will try not to be so dramatic and Sarah Bernhardt-like.

And now, I'm going to bed. At 10:30! Woo!

Breaking down

2008-05-03T17:13:00.002-05:00

I finished my Saturday class today. I turned in my magnificent paper on blog readers, got through the final I spent a grand total of three hours studying for, and I am done. I actually feel pretty good about it, but can't really bask in that glory because I still have a massive paper and presentation to do by Monday. I have a take-home final to do after that, but I'm not even thinking about it until Tuesday.

Last night I nearly burst into tears. I have been so stressed, and so sleep-deprived, and things have been so abnormal around here between work and work travel (mine and Brock's) and potty training and whatever else, plus this school ridiculousness, that I am definitely not myself.

This afternoon I'm crashing hard. I overloaded on caffeine this morning (chai when I got up, grande latte from Starbucks on the way to class, Coke at lunch), giving myself a terrific headache. But I did manage to stay awake for class, which was something. The downside is that the caffeine has worn off, and I'm exhausted. And I'm afraid to drink more caffeine. But I have to crank out nine more pages on greenwashing tonight if I am to have any hope of getting stuff actually done, in a reasonably effective way, by Monday.

I think I am going to add "kick my caffeine habit" to the things I want to do when school is over.

And if you're a friend or family member reading this, please don't call me this weekend. Not to be rude or anything, but I really do not have time to talk to people. I barely have time or energy to interact with the people I live with.

Two more weeks...and then school will be over and I'll get a break. And at least I'm done with one class, right?

NKOTB forever!

2008-05-02T19:38:00.003-05:00

Brock would like to think he is my first and only love. I hate to break it to him, but as a preteen I actually learned what love was when I carried a flaming torch of passion for these guys:

And oh my gosh, you guys, the New Kids on the Block are back together - for real - and they're going on tour!! I am so going - with a group of at least four other girls who experienced similar love stories at similar ages.

The last time I saw NKOTB, I was about 11. It was my first concert. And I was convinced that Joey McIntyre would somehow pick me out of the crowd (you know, seeing across the thousands of people, all the way to the lawn swarming with screaming preteen girls), whisk me away and marry me. I was also under the impression that NKOTB was creating, right there in front of me, a legendary musical event. A legendary musical event that involved very large shoulder pads, humongous peace sign necklaces and hats with the top cut out, among other unfortunate 90s fashions. And pseudo-dancing while sitting on barstools.

Preteen girls are not rational creatures.

It turns out that nearly 30-year-old girls are not rational creatures, either, because my friend Jen and I were so excited when we saw NKOTB was coming to Chicago that we squealed right in the middle of our office. And then we started singing.

Ah, recapturing the magic of childhood. I LOVE YOU, JOEY MAC! Hee hee.

Things I am going to do when school is over

2008-04-29T19:17:00.003-05:00

1. Hang out with my family. A lot.
2. Get a pedicure.
3. Read books for fun.
4. Go out for sushi.
5. Catch up on all my magazines.
6. Catch up on Go Fug Yourself.
7. Clean our house.
8. Eat lunch away from my desk.
9. Bake cookies with my daughter. Maybe even complicated ones that require cookie cutters. :)
10. Go back to kickboxing class.
11. Rejoice that I (wisely) decided not to take summer classes. Sure, it'll take me longer to get through school...but I am so burned out, and so stressed, and so generally disagreeable that I think it's the smartest thing right now!!

It is a sad state of affairs when "clean our house" is a more fun option than what I have to do, which is work on my ethics paper.

Organization

2008-04-23T23:19:00.003-05:00

I am in the midst of final project prep. I will eventually also be in the midst of studying for my one in-class final exam (the other one's just a short paper, and really has no right to be called an "exam" in my opinion), but I can't think about that until the big projects are in the can.

In an effort to keep myself from having a nervous breakdown, last Friday I printed out nice, clean calendars and filled in which tasks I thought I needed to complete for each class each day until everything is due. I even color-coded it. And then I blew it on day 2 by switching everything around. Still, it makes me feel better to have some kind of list of what I have to get done, even if it is now in a not-as-useful format.

Instead of trying to attack both major papers at once, I decided to power through the one I actually had something done on...that way, I reasoned, it would be "out of the way" and I could focus on the other paper, on which I have done nothing but kill trees (ironically, for a paper on greenwashing) by printing out mountains of research I have not begun to read.

Tonight, dear readers, I am happy to report that I have a draft of the first paper done. It's the one about the blog reading survey I conducted. So if you took the survey, thank you - your responses became a crucial part of the 20-page masterpiece I've just drafted. :)

Of course, now I've stayed up too late for two nights in a row, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to hate myself for it tomorrow. But I have a draft done! Wahoo!

Which I guess means I am now out of procrastination techniques for reading that mountain of greenwashing research...wish me luck!

Tire update

2008-04-19T20:51:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I had a major "girl power" day, because I solved my tire problem (almost) all by myself.

I called around several places to find out if they had my tire in stock. Here's what I found out:

My tire model is extra-special because it is really hard to find, and my car is the only model that currently ships with it.

It is also one of the most expensive tires you can buy for that size.

Nobody stocks it.

Sears wasn't all that helpful (one Sears I called never even answered the phone, which I thought was sort of pathetic). NOTE: If I ever apply for a job at Sears, I am going to edit this part out.

I'm now a big fan of National Tire & Battery (NTB).

The NTB guy I talked to, Chris, was extremely helpful. (And, in person, he turned out to be very cute.) I liked NTB because, even though I walked in ready to drop $300 on ONE tire, they said they really wanted to try to fix the other one first. And they did! They were able to fix it for $30. So that's one less zero than I thought I was going to have to spend. They promised me numerous times that my tire would not blow up and they said the repair would last the life of the tire.

They also showed me what was in my tire. I asked if I could keep it because I just had to be able to show people:

It's not a super-great photo, because I took it with my phone, but you can still tell that was a seriously big spike of something that was in my tire. No wonder it went flat.

But I took care of it on my own! Hooray for me!

It's always something

2008-04-17T22:24:00.003-05:00

So I'm stressed, right? And today one of the tires on my car went flat. My NEW car. I mean, I know I probably ran over a nail or something, and it happens, but who expects to have to fix/replace a tire on a 4-month-old car?

The truly excellent thing, though, is that my car TOLD me the tire was low. I started the car after work, and it said, "CHECK TIRE PRESSURE" in bright orange letters, with a helpful little diagram showing me it was concerned about the rear passenger-side tire. Very handy.

I already have an appointment for an oil change at the dealership on Monday, so I'm going to call tomorrow and ask them if they can take care of the tire while I'm there. And then just not drive my car all weekend. We figure the dealership might be the best bet, since this car has so many sensors and things that have to be reset (or whatever...I'm baffled by how this car knows so much).

Why did I think this was a good idea?

2008-04-16T22:13:00.002-05:00

So, work is crazy. Mostly the challenging-in-a-good-way kind of crazy, but it is causing me stress.

I have a 15-page paper due in less than 3 weeks, for which I have only begun research...meaning, I downloaded/requested a bunch of articles whose titles looked promising. I have not yet reviewed any of these articles. There's also a 10-minute presentation to prepare on the paper I haven't written yet. I'm actually not even 100% sure what I'm supposed to be talking about in the paper.

I have a rather large research project due in less than three weeks, as well, for which I have only just gotten my survey results. (THANKS if you took my survey!!) Again, I need to prepare a presentation based on the research report I haven't written yet.

My fantastic kid is potty training, which is a weird roller coaster of really HIGH highs (hooray, you did it!) and really LOW lows (accidents in the bathtub). It also involves spending a lot of time sitting in the bathroom.

My husband is probably going to have to take another business trip soon. I told him I really didn't mind this (and I don't) because, while he is wonderful and was very concerned about having to leave when I am in the throes of school/work insanity (not to mention the potty training), I don't think I would get any work done any faster if he were here vs. not here.

Luckily, I'm done traveling for awhile...and if I can just get a plan in place for the school stuff, I will feel a lot better. But right now it all has the feel of, "Jeez, I should have started all this crap six weeks ago, even though I didn't have all the information I really needed to be able to do it then."

I had a major stomach ache this afternoon/evening...which I was afraid might be stomach flu, but I think might have actually been from stress. That is NOT cool.

I need it to be May 12. Then I have the whole summer off from school and I can bank some sanity for the fall semester. It's going to take me longer to get through school, but I am SO glad I am taking the summer off.

Life is a highway...

2008-04-08T21:09:00.005-05:00

...and mine has been traffic-filled lately.

I went to California for work last week, which was difficult because Hannah is finally old enough to really miss me, understand that she misses me, and make me feel bad about it without even really trying. She was really excited to see me when I came home, though. :)

Our lives have become quite focused on the challenges of potty training a three-year-old. We seem to be making some progress. I got a manicure & pedicure before I left for California, and the women doing my nails gave me a hard time because my daughter isn't potty-trained yet. Seriously - what is it about having a kid that makes total strangers assume they can tell you what they think about the job you're doing? Meh on them.

Work has been insane, but I am not stupid enough to publicly write about why. Let's just say that I am "between bosses." Work has been really busy for Brock, too...he's had to work quite a few late evenings lately. I don't know how he does it; I just wear out at a certain point and can't think anymore, but he can keep plugging on something until he gets it completed/fixed/updated/whatever. It's impressive.

I only have a month of school left, and I haven't really started rocking either of my final projects. I should be doing that instead of this (or at least cleaning the bathroom instead of doing this), but I lack motivation. But...please take my survey if you haven't already! I am taking the summer off, which I'm sure I'll regret when I'm stuck in school and everyone I started with is finished, but I need a break.

I went for a nice walk with Robin on Sunday, which was good...we hadn't done that in awhile and it was nice to catch up. We walked around my neighborhood, and it made me think about how my mind is shifting into "move" mode. We've always known we'd want to try to move before Hannah starts school. Hopefully the market will recover a bit before then...but our stroll around the neighborhood made me realize that I never want to live anywhere with chain link fences ever again. I love our house so much, but I'm starting to hate the chain link fences around here.

The weekend was beautiful here, which was refreshing after so many cold, awful winter months. We broke 60 degrees for the first time! Wahoo! There's hope for us all.

Okay, enough procrastinating. My ethics paper is calling me...

If you're reading this, you should take my survey!

2008-04-06T21:22:00.003-05:00

It is time for me to beg shamelessly for your help (yes, you - stop trying to hide behind your monitor. I know you're there).

You see, I am but a poor student in a graduate-level marketing research class...a class in which I must learn the basics of marketing research, ostensibly so that I will one day be able to intelligently hire a marketing research firm to do high-quality work for my company without ripping me off. So, my big learning experience is that I have to do my own research project and then write a paper about it.

I'm doing my research project to determine demographics, attitudes and habits of people who read blogs. YOU read blogs. At least this one. So I am asking you to PLEASE, PLEASE take my survey. I need lots of responses so I can write a good paper.

Click Here to take survey

It won't take you very long, your responses will be completely anonymous AND you get the wonderful feeling that can only being achieved when helping a desperate grad student complete her major project.

Thanks for your help!

Spring Break! Woo!

2008-03-15T16:41:00.004-05:00

While Spring Break certainly does not mean what it used to, back in the good ol' days of undergrad, I am still extremely happy to report that I don't have to go to class for nine whole days. Woo!

If I were really dedicated, I would use this time to try to get ahead (or, er, caught up) on some school work so as to save myself some stress when class starts up again. But let's just say I'm not feeling really dedicated. *chuckle*

Rather, I am celebrating NOT having class on Monday by going out for sushi with some friends from work. Sushi is better than homework.

Des Moines restaurant recommendation

2008-03-07T21:07:00.002-06:00

I usually go to Des Moines once a year for business. I like Des Moines, really...it's a nice, small Midwestern city, and over the past few years it has really shaped up after what I imagine has been a dedicated rehabilitation effort. There are still some areas that look a bit run down and sad, but the downtown area has some really nice hotels and GREAT restaurants. I have never had a bad meal in Des Moines. But I had the best meal ever on this latest trip at a restaurant called Azalea.

It's pricey, I'll give you that. But I liked that a lot of the items on the menu seemed to combine unusual flavors in an unexpectedly fabulous way (the bacon-wrapped sea scallops and pumpkin polenta appetizer was awesome), and the vodka tonic I had was huge. I had the wild salmon for my entree and it rocked. But the very, very best thing ever was my dessert: bleu cheese cheesecake with candied figs. I know it sounds completely weird, but it was seriously the best cheesecake I have ever had in my life. Of course, my favorite food in the world is cheese, and my favorite cheese is bleu cheese, so the fact that some brilliant chef decided to put bleu cheese in a dessert form is like a dream come true.

One of the few good things about business travel is that when you're wining and dining people, you get to try out some restaurants you probably wouldn't go to very often in your normal, everyday life. I think Azalea has become a "must-visit" place for me from now on when I travel to Des Moines.

Having a Monday

2008-03-03T22:04:00.002-06:00

This morning, after dropping Hannah off at day care, I hit myself in the face with my car door.

Yep, that's what happened.

Looking back on it, I still haven't figured out the logistics of how I managed to do this so spectacularly. I was in a hurry, and I wrenched open the door, and the next thing I knew was awful pain, disorientation and stars (you really do see stars when you get clocked in the face - who knew?). I didn't break my nose, and in the grand scheme of things I shouldn't really complain, but man - it HURT!

So I went back home, emailed people at work that I had to wait for the bleeding to stop before I could come in, cried a little and felt sorry for myself that a) my nose had a painful, bloody gash and b) I had to wear a Band-Aid on my nose like an 8-year-old.

I got over feeling sorry for myself but did spend the rest of the day feeling stupid. The good news is that the gash, under the powers of Neosporin and Band-Aids, seems to already look a bit better than it did this morning. It's still achy and is probably going to be bruised tomorrow. And I have a big presentation to do on Thursday that I imagine is going to be a bit awkward with a bandage on my nose. But whatever.

Then, when I got on my way to work, I decided I'd earned a Starbucks run. So I ordered my current favorite, a grande Cinnamon Dolce Latte (thanks, Vic - I used the gift card you sent me for Christmas!) and a blueberry muffin.

They were out of muffins. Whatever.

The whole day reminded me of the first bad day I ever remember having. I was in first grade. I was leaving school after what I imagine was a long and tedious day of learning my left from my right. It was raining, and I didn't have an umbrella. I dropped my yellow Cabbage Patch Kids lunchbox down the steps outside school, and it broke. When I got home, Mom asked me how my day was. And I said (I remember this vividly): "It's raining, and I didn't have my umbrella, and my lunchbox broke...and I have a headache!"

Give me a snowblower or give me death!

2008-02-26T06:29:00.003-06:00

Okay, not that drastic, but still. We got another 5 dodecajillion inches of snow last night, which inspired twice the usual shoveling fun - once last night around 9:30 and again this morning around 5:30. It was good to do it in two parts, though, because waiting for the whole amount of snow to fall would have meant a MUCH longer shoveling experience. (Although this appears to be what all the neighbors with snowblowers are doing...hmph.) The good news is that apparently we're about done with this snowfall...and what we have is now just going to blow around all day. (I guess only the first half of that sentence was the good news.)

This is the snowiest winter we've had in a long time - our total for the season now is around 50 inches. I find that if I think about that too long, it makes me sad. I know it's worse in other places, but that doesn't mean we're not still buried in snow here!

Also, despite my last post about snow, no entrepreneurial 12-year-olds showed up with an offer to shovel our driveway. Which leads me to two conclusions: 1) no entrepreneurial 12-year-olds read this blog; and 2) there is a 12-year-old somewhere who could have been more financially secure this morning, and he or she doesn't even know it.

Okay...time to go get ready for work.

Oscars, schmoscars

2008-02-24T21:08:00.004-06:00

On this, the occasion of the 80th Academy Awards, I want to share something that indicates how far my life has come since I had a baby:

I have only seen one movie that is nominated for any award in any category. Just one, and that was Pirates 3, and it was just nominated for makeup and visual effects. Which means I never see movies anymore. When I was in college, the Oscars were a major event for me and my roommate. We were movie-going fiends, and we'd usually seen most of the movies and had strong opinions about who should win. I remember one year, she had a 7:30 class the day after the awards and had to go to bed before it was over, and she made me write down who won the awards she missed and leave the list on the kitchen counter so she could see it in the morning (clearly, this was before we'd all come to rely so heavily on the internet).

And now, I've only seen one movie out of all the movies that have been nominated.

Maybe I'll luck out next year and the Veggie Tales movie will get nominated for something, and I'll feel included. :)

The Man is getting me down

2008-02-21T21:17:00.004-06:00

Amendment to last post: IT department now won't install software to let me sync up my phone to my new laptop because they "can't support personal hardware devices." Apparently allowing you to plug said hardware into your computer is "support." (I have not determined what this might mean for my headphones or my jump drive. Frankly, I fear for their future.)

In all fairness, I do believe the person who was forced to give me this news felt it was ridiculous, too, but that doesn't mean they're going to cave.

If I weren't working on a computer at work that still has a floppy drive (this is no joke - if you have floppy disks from college and you're wondering how you can reclaim your masterpiece term papers from history class in this age of jump drives, just send them on over to me and I can get that taken care of for you), I would be sorely tempted to just forget about the laptop.

I realize I am violating my personal code about not blogging about work, but seriously. I'm like an IT person's dream! I don't install weird stuff, I'm quite computer literate, and I never ask them for anything! AND I even lock my computer every time I leave my desk for any length of time. NOBODY does that. Seems to me that following the rules is not all it's cracked up to be. Where, I ask you, is the love?

It's that time again...

2008-02-20T21:09:00.003-06:00

...Time for schoolwork to be due! And that means it's time for me to procrastinate by blogging. I have a short paper (very short - 2 pages) due on Monday. It's for my ethics class, which means it will require a lot of Deep Thought in order to come up with the finished two pages, and I don't feel very capable of Deep Thought right now. I also have a pile of reading to do...which I may work on a bit after I finish this. I have started approaching reading totally the wrong way: I do it when I don't want to do the work I actually have to complete for class. So I still feel like I'm accomplishing something, but I don't have to really do anything. The problem there is that nobody is grading me on my reading. But I'll get it done, because I always get everything done.

My ethics class is kind of crazy. I really like it because it's philosophical and interesting and there are a lot of gray areas to debate. Also, it seems nobody thinks marketers have any ethics at all, so it's nice to examine issues as a framework for convincing people that ethical marketing is actually possible. But we spend like the first hour to 90 minutes of each class discussing ethics-related stuff we've seen in the news, which is also interesting but can kind of drag when you've already worked a full day and eaten dinner in your car so you wouldn't be late for class. And the bookstore ordered a newer version of the textbook than the professor had, so our book doesn't match her syllabus at all. (She said all the info is the same, it's just in a different order, but it's confusing.) We never talk about the book in class, so I'm not entirely sure why I'm reading it. My research class is with the same professor and the lectures are heavily based on the book...so I don't think she's like anti-textbook or something. I do really like the professor, so that's good. But I'm having a hard time wrenching my brain between Deep Thought ethics and Grounded in Reality research. It requires two completely different thought processes. Also, neither one is as practical or immediately relevant to my job as my classes last semester, so it's hard to get as excited about them.

The last couple of weeks have been wacky. Hannah's birthday party was a week and a half ago, which was way fun but meant that I was getting ready to party and host 20 people at my house rather than do any work for school. And I took a day off work to get the house cleaned, so that meant I wasn't getting all my work done, either. It was worth it because Hannah had the best time, but it meant that the week after that was pretty...cranky.

Brock has had to work a lot of late hours lately because of the project he's on, which has been a little frustrating for all of us. And work sort of exploded for me, but I couldn't stay late because I either had class or Brock was working - and his working late was dictated by client deadlines, which sort of trumped me just needing to get things off my to-do list. Also, our plumbing got screwed up and it took more than a week to get it fixed because a) we were both super-busy and b) the plumbers didn't do a thorough job the first time they came. (Short version of the story: Plumbers came. Didn't find a blockage and told us to call the Village to check out the main line. Called the Village. Village was very attentive, came out right away, couldn't find a problem but flushed the line anyway. We still had a problem. Village checked the main line again. Couldn't find anything. Plumbers came out again yesterday. Turns out they hadn't checked our ENTIRE sewer line the last time, and - aha! - the blockage was in the part they hadn't checked. This cost a few hundred bucks, a great deal of stress and disgust. Good news is that it's fixed now, and after one more night of mopping with bleach, our basement should be okay. And we can freely run water again, which is good because the laundry was really getting out of control.)

This past weekend was one of my crankiest weekends in recent memory. I was just feeling overwhelmed and helpless to do anything about it. My funk lasted through about Monday afternoon...and was completely gone yesterday when the plumbing was officially fixed. I'm still feeling overwhelmed, but not as grumbly about it.

Oh...and here's another thing. I've been asking for a laptop at work for a couple of years, and they finally approved the request. So I get my new laptop next week, which is cool - but they won't let me have iTunes because it "isn't allowed because it's not work-related." (I have it on my computer now, but I think because my computer is so old, nobody realized I had the permissions to install anything myself.) I know I'm not an IT person and I couldn't possibly understand all the issues they face...but it's not like I'm asking for a stupid game or something. I just want to plug in my iPod and listen to music without running down my battery. I don't even want to put music on the computer! They did, at least, agree to install the software that lets me sync up my calendar with my phone, even though my phone isn't theirs. So I guess that's a small victory. Meh.

Take this snow and shovel it!

2008-02-07T22:04:00.000-06:00

I have snow fatigue. I am so sick of snow. We got approximately 4 gajillion inches of snow yesterday, on top of the 8 quatrillion inches we got last week. The difference is that last week's snow was very cold and light. Yesterday's snow was heavy and wet and slushy and very, very hard to shovel.

What I realized last night, as Brock and I were shoveling our driveway (which will hold four to six cars on a nice, dry, snow-free day) at 9:30, is that we are the only ones of our immediate neighbors who do not have a) a snow blower or b) a standing arrangement with someone who has a snow blower. Nobody else was out shoveling at 9:30, and their driveways were all lovely and clear. That was really sad. I know most of our neighbors are like twice our age, and it makes sense for them to have snow blowers, and that we are young and should embrace the fact that we're physically able to get out and shovel snow like that. But last night I had serious snow blower envy.

The other thing I realized last night is that today's kids are apparently lazy. Or maybe their allowances are too high. Because I remember back in the good ol' days, when I was growing up, and enterprising young people from throughout the neighborhood would come by our house and ask my parents if they could mow the lawn (if it was summer) or shovel the driveway (if it was winter). I seem to remember that they never asked for more than about $10 for this service. Those young people probably grew up to be highly successful owners of landscape/snow removal firms.

We have had FEET of snow this year. Not once has any kid come by my house to ask if I want my driveway shoveled. And what the kids who aren't coming by don't know is that I would pay them WAY more than $10 to do it. In fact, in the four years we have lived in our house, there have only been two times when somebody offered to shovel our driveway for a fee. And both times, we paid for it. So...if you're an entrepreneurial 12-year-old in my neighborhood and you're reading this, PLEASE stop by the next time it snows a lot. You will make more money shoveling our driveway than you would staying home to play Guitar Hero III. In fact, you will also get exercise. So really, our driveway has the power to fight childhood obesity AND the rumored impending economic crisis. But that power is currently going to waste, because nobody ever comes by and offers to shovel our driveway!!

I will say that one of our snow blower-wielding neighbors did come over and clear our driveway and walks while we were out of town over New Year's. Because (as noted above) all of our neighbors seem to have snow blowers, we're still not sure who did it. If I ever find out, I will make that person cookies...because I can't think of anything worse than coming home after a snowy, awful 7-hour drive to find out you can't get the car in the garage. So thank you, anonymous neighbor, for that. And if you want to come forward the next time there's a significant snowfall and repeat the act of kindness, I will totally make you a double batch.

I just needed to rant about snow. I'm over it.