Tag Archives: life

Just life

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I made steal cut oats for breakfast. We had strawberries, walnuts, whole milk, and a little bit of brown sugar mixed in. It was fabulous.

Today was a cooking day. We have tri-tip prepared as well as chicken cooked with orange and pineapple and a little bit of rum. I boiled the rutabagas and potatoes and smashed them up together with a lot of butter and milk. I haven’t figured out what I am doing with the chard yet this week. hm. We still have asparagus and artichoke to cook but I figure those can wait a day or so.

Between cooking and cleaning house I don’t seem to find/make time to sew. This is very annoying. It doesn’t help that I feel like I really ought to be studying for the comp exam. Twelve more days.

Have I mentioned that I feel growing anxiety about this test? This is my last shot. If I fuck this up I’m just done. That’s kind of stressful.

I want to have an affair with my husband. I miss having that sort of intense interaction with him.

My daughter is getting more and more kid-like every day. I find her endlessly fascinating. And exasperating. Definitely exasperating. 🙂 She is sleeping for shit these days and that’s feeling really hard.

I need to get off my ass and plan the birthday party. *sigh*

I managed to get off the acceptance letter to the roofer and the information for the estate lawyer. I met with someone (ironically–he’s my sister’s ex-boyfriend. the only boyfriend of hers that I have ever liked) today about putting solar panels on our roof. It’s looking very likely. That’s productivity. We are still waiting to hear back from the accountant. By this time next month we may well be many tens of thousands of dollars poorer.

My back hurts and I’m not getting enough exercise. There is simply not enough time in the day.

Any feminist who questions the worth of what I do with my time can kiss my lily-white-ass. Those of you who are working moms–how do you manage to sleep?! I don’t have enough time for all of my stuff and you all have to do what I do and work. Y’all must be crazy.

More erf

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I woke up at six and can’t get back to sleep. Too much going on in my brain. Physically I’m kind of off and I can’t figure out exactly what is wrong. I’m obsessing about all the deaths that have happened in the last year and some. I feel very anxious about life. The comp exam is in 18 days. I should probably review poetry. *sigh*

I can’t get driving directions online to the place we are going in Oklahoma. All the mapping software basically knows that the road exists but that’s it. Awesome. I have to wait until a more sane hour then call them. I’m sure there are tiny little motels in the town we are going to, but there is zero online presence for any hotel there. I lived in this town for a little while as a kid. I remember feeling very superior because I was from the big city. Now I find it almost charming in a severely inconvenient sort of way.

I still haven’t decided if I am going to deal with dragging the carseat around in the airports and gate checking it or if I am ok with actually checking it. I’ve heard some horror stories about baggage handlers destroying carseats. They are somewhat delicate and if you throw them too hard they are no longer useful in a crash. And they are so fucking expensive. But I’m not going to have much in the way of help. *sigh*

They don’t sell good travel potties that fit over elongated toilet bowls. Fuckers. You’d think that this would be a reasonable thing to have given that almost all public toilets are elongated. Shanna does not appreciate sitting precariously on a grown up toilet while being held up. It makes the whole pottying experience much more stressful. I think I’m going to bring her potty and disposable anti-bacterial wipes for cleaning it out. Not my first choice, but better than not being able to potty her. At this point I’m only having a couple of misses a day and I don’t really want to back slide a lot. I think it is funny that by volume more than half of what I am bringing on this trip is diapers. People still ask me when I am going to switch to disposables (not for traveling–just in general) because “Aren’t you sick of washing diapers?” The washing really doesn’t phase me in the slightest. However I was really really really tempted to not deal with lugging the volume on this trip.

You people don’t post on lj enough. I tell you all about my life, where is the reciprocal reading material? 😛 (Essaying–you do well. 😀 And I have no complaints about Rbus.)

My house isn’t clean and I’m trying very hard not to care. It’s a struggle though. I will never again buy black furniture. Being able to see dust 15 minutes after dusting makes me feel like I am the worst, most terrible housekeeper ever in the history of the world. I really don’t need that guilt.

I had a good time at the museum on Sunday. It was nice to see people and play with kidlets. 🙂 Shanna is still not quite to the interacting large scale stage. It’s all about her. 🙂 It’s very cute.

It’s hard balancing things with Noah right now. His job is sucking the life out of him. I am trying as much as I can to be supportive and not demand much of him. I was doing ok for a while. Then I hit an emotional wall and started feeling really upset and crummmy and needing a lot more from him. I’m largely still not pestering him with those needs. He doesn’t have much extra right now. So I’m spending a lot of time crying. It’s interesting how I know this isn’t depression–it doesn’t feel that way. I’m grieving. I’m sad. It feels pretty lonely to feel like this and spend so much time alone. Shanna doesn’t count as a person in this way because she is pretty much a bottomless pit of need with not much to give. I’m ok with that–that is what she is supposed to be. But I’m having a hard time. I’m pretty sure my grieving isn’t impacting her negatively. She seems to be still very healthy and happy and delighted by life.

Oh, and she’s teething again. The diaper rash appeared instantly and is fierce. I don’t entirely understand how she can get diaper rash like that when she is barely wetting diapers at all and she never sits in pee. Babies are a mystery. Good thing they are a cute mystery. She has been asleep for more than 11 hours. This is very very good because it is going to be a long day of traveling and her naps are going to be disrupted. I’m nervous about traveling with her by myself but I’ll manage.

Wow that’s a lot of whining. And she slept through me writing it. w00t.

Eventful.

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When I got up I thought today would be boring. I thought I would go to Whole Foods with my neighbor and maybe hit the nursery (for plant matter–not baby). Well, it was a starting plan.

I went to the nursery this morning and spent quite a while figuring out what sorts of veggies to put into the pots in my back yard. I selected two varieties of tomatoes (one is best for paste the other is best for being more solid like and mixes in well for sauce), squash, sweet basil, oregano, sweet peas, and a neato sounding pepper. I was planning to try and put them into pots basically immediately but when I got home I was derailed by a phone call from my mother.

It turns out that a family friend died this morning. She was 79 and in extremely poor health so I can’t really call it a shock. My mother and I had been planning to go out to Oklahoma to see them this summer at a big birthday party. It turns out that we will instead be flying out on Tuesday for a funeral. It took a while to find reasonable airfares for both of us.

Then I went to Whole Foods with my neighbor. We both had a lot of fun wandering around looking at the sheer variety of pretentious food. Of course we both spent too much money. Oy. That place is dangerous. While we were there we ran into one of my former students. It was quite lovely as she danced with joy and told her three friends extensively about how I was the best teacher ever. She was not one of my most dedicated students so we spent a lot of time together in 8th period social club getting to know one another. 🙂 It was great to see that she is trying to go to college. On the ride home my neighbor told me, essentially, that I make her feel kind of stupid because I know so many things and can answer in depth questions on such a wide variety of topics. I think that it was made even worse when she figured out that I am seven years younger than her. I don’t think she is stupid, I think she is simply asking questions about things that I have researched and she hasn’t. Oy. But I helped her realize a few things about her marriage and that’s to the good.

I came home and spent a while talking to Noah about how frustrated he is at work right now. I wish there was more I could do to help him. Then I made the rest of the arrangements for the trip to Oklahoma. Then I sat down for a few minutes to catch up on the internet and I received a phone call from Debbie! This is always exciting. She lives in Taiwan right now so I don’t get to talk to her much. I’m glad that she has been awesome about keeping in touch with me. 🙂

Noah decided that it would be a good plan for him to go to the gym for a while after dinner because it will be a break from thinking. As he was getting ready to run out the door he casually mentioned that his parents are trying really hard to come out here for Shanna’s birthday.

It’s been a day.

Hot cereal and compassion

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Today I decided that I should probably not put my normal 2-3 tablespoons of refined white sugar on my cream of wheat. If I want my kid to eat less sugar I need to lead the charge. (In my defense: I use less sugar than my mother.) So I chopped up a couple of fresh strawberries and used two teaspoons of strawberry preserves. It was alright but not terribly sweet so I added a teaspoon of sugar. It was good enough for me. My hope is that with practice I won’t need the added sugar after a while. 🙂

As for compassion: I’m having a hard time finding compassion for a mama of my acquaintance and I don’t feel good about my lack of compassion. Her son is six weeks older than Shanna and she hit postpartum depression about a month ago. I’ve talked to her about depression in general, coping skills and vitamins/supplements that tend to help and that’s all fine. I’m having a hard time because she is on disability leave from her job and she is not spending any time with her son. She continues to send him off to his grandparents every day (they are in their late 70’s) and she stays home by herself. I have a long history of depression but I always manage to do the things that have to be done. I have never personally been so depressed that I neglected basic care for another person. On one hand, she is making sure her son is well cared for and that’s good. On the other hand: she’s not taking care of her son, her husband and his parents are. I feel guilty about judging her because I haven’t walked in her shoes and it isn’t my place. On the other hand it’s hard for me to supply the compassion she deserves when she comes to my house crying.

I feel conflicted. I almost want to tell her that being depressed in no excuse to pawn off care of her son. I wouldn’t do it no matter how depressed I was. But that’s me. I have no idea what it is like to live in someone else’s head so I shouldn’t be such a snot.

URGH!

Freedom!

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Noah is taking Shanna out for a few hours. I’m going to take a bath. I’m going to shave my entire legs instead of just the really awful part below my knee. I’m going to have a glass of wine. (I really don’t care that it is 11am.) I’m going to read in the tub until the water is freezing. I’m going to use all the lovely skin-softening bath products I own and never use. I’m going to straighten my hair.

I’m not going to do a single chore.

I could get used to this.

meat.

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This week I used two chicken breasts, five sausages (of two different varieties), and ~nine strips of bacon in cooking. That’s it for the week. Wow. I had one meat sandwich. I’m feeling massive cravings right now for red meat.

(All of that meat was put into ~34 servings of food. I need to freeze the leftovers.) (And 34 servings sounds like a lot until you think about the fact that a person eats at least/around 21 meals/week and there are two of us here.)

I’ve finished off ~ 80% of the CSA box. Next week I need to make less pasta. It’s a big filler.

not good

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Shanna is sick. She has a fever and she is lethargic and tired. This isn’t great but it pales next to being told that someone I love tremendously was raped. I don’t know how to adequately help him. Yes, him. I feel terrible because I didn’t try harder to help him when/before it happened.

Sometimes I feel like I could joyfully take on all the suffering in the world just to protect my loved ones. I’m very strong; I know I could handle it. I don’t really know how he will truly heal.

Taking positions

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I semi-regularly post controversial things without stating my overall opinions on the topic. I like saying things like, “This is interesting” without specifying exactly what I find interesting or why. It is interesting that people often leap to conclusions about my positions on things. Last night as I was falling asleep I thought about the fact that I probably keep my mouth shut on some of my more extreme positions because I hate the fact that I already get snotty comments about the fact that I have strong opinions without fully expressing most of my strong opinions. That would be, in fact, why I believe that people are trying to shame someone into silence with the phrase “Don’t hold back, tell me how you really feel” and its close cousins.

So ok, you want to know some of my strong opinions? Fine. I’ll state some of them. If you flame me, act like an asshole, or just in generally are rude I will delete your comment without response. If you want to engage me in spirited debate that is fine, keeping in mind that I am leaving the country tomorrow. Alright, here we go…

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Humble expectations

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The secret to happiness is low expectations. At least that’s what Noah tells me all the time.

I’m great at playing with my kid and taking care of her. I go in bursts of being ok at keeping up with everything else. I had a lazy weekend and I’ve had a hard time getting motivated today. But I read to Shanna for a long time. And we played. And I figured out how to carry the car seat through the airport (Shibari comes in handy). Other than that… I got nothing.

*sigh*

What a lovely day

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One of Noah’s college friends invited us over yesterday to play games and ignore the super bowl. That worked for me. 🙂 I had such a great time. The entire attitude towards the games made me happy. People weren’t overly competitive and were quite cheerful about handing over a card that might help someone else “just because you are so nice.” That is exactly the sort of attitude I wish more people had about games. In cut-throat games I get angry and feel hostile and usually want to hit someone. I’m so happy that I got to have a pleasant gaming experience. I played three new-to-me games and even though I had to ask a lot of questions and get help no one was snotty or condescending.

See, this makes me want to play more. Most of the time when I play games with people I don’t have any interest in playing for years.

Yay!

just… happy

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I was thinking earlier today. I was in a funk earlier this week and for part of last week and it was annoying, but really not so bad. I have been sad for short periods in the past few months. I get angry every so often. But I haven’t felt self-loathing in a long time. I can’t remember when I last hated myself. It’s kind of weird to think about, but I loathed myself for most of my life. I remember what it is like to think terrible thoughts about myself constantly and I’m surprised I didn’t notice it stopping. Somehow I just let it go.

That’s really awesome. 🙂 Man my life is good.

Oh, and in other news: Shanna sat up from laying down today for the first time. 🙂

Batty lately

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For the past couple of days I have been on a really annoying emotional roller coaster. I’m angry, sad, giddy, and annoyed by turns. In the main I am able to keep my expressions of these feelings down to saying, “Wow, I am really really annoyed right now for no good reason” replacing “annoyed” with the emotion of the moment. But I’m *feeling* really intensely and it’s bugging me. I like having more moderate emotions; they are less draining. Nothing much has happened to trigger me in any direction that I know of.

My (minor) things wrong at the moment: for some reason I have started doing all the bad habits that make my jaw hurt really suddenly. I had stopped doing all of these for a long time. A have a tooth that hurts. I’m mildly fussed about money stuff but only in a stupid vague way–we aren’t exactly in trouble. And I’m starting to read towards the comp exam again but I’m doing it very slowly and mellowly with books that sound interesting.

Yeah, those are all very very mild irks. I have no idea why I am experiencing such intense feelings. I am also starving. By golly I’m eating my weekly points and my exercise points and I still kind of want to cry with hunger. Don’t worry I am continuing to eat when I’m that hungry whether I have points or not. I don’t think it is reasonable to be that hungry and not eat. I’m trying to figure out what sorts of food will make me feel full because nothing is doing it right now. I can’t figure out why I am so hungry. Shanna hasn’t been nursing more than usual.

Shanna is in fact being her awesome, mellow self lately so I can’t blame any of this on stress from her. She’s sleeping 11-12 hours a night with one, sometimes two wake-ups. I really have no complaints about her. She’s a little clingy during the day but not beyond what is totally reasonable and normal for her age. It’s cool watching her scoot all over the floor playing with toys. 🙂

So yeah. Feeling batty just now.

Good little housewife

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I like the icon. It expresses to me how deep and thoughtful most posts are.

That said: man I’ve been a good housewife today. Because I am exactly this dorky, here is my list of accomplishments…

-I figured out Quicken. It was a major pain in the ass, but I did it. I used to keep track of our budget stuff using Excel, but it took forever and I am just not willing to put in that many hours of labor anymore. Hopefully this’ll work out.
-Called home inspector for an appointment.
-Put up the craigslist ad to get rid of the table. This involved going out and taking pictures of it so I’m happy I got it done.
-Did two loads of laundry.
-Did the dishes and otherwise tidied up the kitchen.
-Finished the last touches on cleaning up the garage. It is once again able to accept the car. w00t
-Changed three dirty diapers and caught one pee. I’ve been distracted.
-Did all the necessary steps to get the property tax check in the mail. Sometimes I suck at this.
-Put up more pictures of Shanna: http://picasaweb.google.com/somethingdifferent/Shanna
-Ate lunch
-I’ve cycled the Brita pitcher 6 times refreshing my water storage in the refrigerator. This is a big deal because it means I am more likely to actually drink water in the next few days. (I only drink it cold.)
-I went and had some cookies. (I haven’t used this euphemism in a while. ha.)

Hmmmm. What should I do next? Shanna is flirting heavily and seems to be leaning towards playing with her. Maybe that’s all the day needs to be perfect. 🙂

That darn life.

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So I’m in a funk today. I’m lonely and bored. It’s interesting to realize that. I think it is because of how much time I have been spending alone at home doing baking. I really am an extrovert. I need to try and make more plans with people in the upcoming time. It’s hard making plans with people because 9/10 times involve me having to drive somewhere, often taking up a lot of time. I also find that most people want to invite me to parties because that’s what they do with their time. I get the efficiency of parties–you get to see lots of people at once. Lately parties really kind of suck for me. I don’t enjoy them and that’s not anyone’s fault. So I’m skipping parties and feeling even more lonely and isolated. I need to try harder to get in touch with people. It’s just hard because I feel like I’m initiating the contact with most everyone and that feels hard. I’m not the bell of any ball anymore and it’s a hard come down. A friend recently posted that she knows that she has finally completely left the “cute young thing” group at 33 and I wanted to wistfully tell her that it must have been nice to have it last so long. I left it a while ago. Waaaaaa waaaaa waaaaa. [insert pity party]

I know that this stage will pass. It’s just kind of annoying.

2008 in review

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I was asked:
What are you most thankful for in 2008? What was the most important lesson that you learned? Who touched you, and made you more than who you were before?

What made 2008 special for you?

I am most thankful for my daughter. It was long, but my labor was not actually that difficult. I had no complications and my daughter is healthy.

Probably the most important lesson I (re)learned is that every choice you make excludes other options. I’m having a very hard time with the knowledge that I may never teach again. I miss it fiercly.

My daughter again. I have the power to affect everything in her life. It’s a big responsibility and I’m trying hard to be worthy.

The company of Noah on this amazing journey. I have an amazing partner and I feel very blessed.

So–how about you?

What are you most thankful for in 2008? What was the most important lesson that you learned? Who touched you, and made you more than who you were before?

What made 2008 special for you?

Good party, mellow weekend.

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Last night we went to Winter Bash and had a good time. I’m not as social at these events as I possibly could be because I don’t know many people. But I really like the people I do talk to. Miss Jenny took pity on me and danced with me. It was very awesome of her. I was feeling bad because I couldn’t remember any of the ECD stuff at all but she went and got her ipod during a break and we did swing dancing and waltzed instead. Miss Jenny wins! I should bring her extra cookies soon as a reward. 🙂 I was also given pictures! Both from Miss Jenny and from Master Fiddler himself. whoo hoo!

On the drive home Noah and I talked about people (as we are wont to do). One of our biggest focuses this time was Master Fiddler. We talked about how good a job he does at creating an environment where everyone who comes to his house can feel at home even if they are rare visitors who don’t know many people. We talked about the specific things he does that create this vibe. Then we went on to discussing his place in the group in general. I mention this here because part of the crux of the conversation was about how much importance I place on the word “Master”. It’s cause of that history in the bdsm world. I take the word “Master” rather freakin seriously and you have to *earn* it. He really has. Not just because of his exceptional musical talent, but through the way in which he is absolutely the default answer for how things go musically for a rather lot of people. It was pretty nice to think in detail about how rocking he is. I like knowing people who have truly become a Master.

And we talked a lot about Noah’s job. It looks like he is going to spend a lot of time working so I am even more glad that we are not having a party. Instead we will be staying home and I’ll be puttering as usual and he will be working. It’s like we jumped right to Monday. I’m sure he will take extra breaks for cuddling though and that will be nice. My daughter just woke up so I will go play with her now. 🙂

Lessons learned.

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Some of these are things I came up with all by myself. Some came as a result of talking to my mom.

1) New cookie sheets so they are all a consistent color and I don’t burn half the cookies. (Dark cookie sheets need to bake at a lower temperature and you can’t go back and forth very well.)
2) Start baking in early November and freeze the cookies. (This is how Mary Poppins [that’s my mom] managed to have something like 10 different cookies for Christmas.)
3) No more than one or two single batches of cookies in a day. More than that starts feeling like unfun work and cookies shouldn’t be unfun work. (One or two batches can be done in less than two hours. That’s a nap-time project and fun.)
4) If I am not completely ready for a party by a week before I should hang it up. I get too stressed and anxious if I let things get too close to the wire and then I’m not able to have fun. (This is part of managing my anxiety/depression stuff. I have to watch stress. Being good at recognizing these sorts of triggers and dealing with them is why I manage to not be on meds.)
5) Get a different carrier so I can do back carries with Shanna. She is too forking big for me to work around her in front of me. (I can’t SEE!!!! And the moby is too stretchy to use on my back in a way I feel comfortable with.)
6) Don’t try to host an event while I am still nursing all night. It means I have very few hours of the day to work and I’m not able to get all the prep done. (I’m in bed for almost 12 hours a night. No really, I’m not underslept.)
7) Start baking more often, like once a week, so that I get more familiar with how to bake and I don’t make as many mistakes. (I ruined a couple batches of dough. That was frustrating.)
8) As long as I live in this house–make sure that I have completely cleaned off every single surface in the kitchen the day before baking. (There is not room to have anything else out and bake. And if I try to do it in the same day I get angry.)

I think that is enough from this situation. All that said, I’m only mildly twinging on feeling bad about canceling the party. I’m sad to not see my friends, but I can rectify that by making plans to see people one on one. That’ll be a good thing.