Tag Archives: noah

It’s a good thing I have the best husband ever.

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The problem is that I’m a pretty hardcore extrovert. It takes a lot of people time before my cup feels full. Noah has been trying really hard lately to help meet my needs. I appreciate that. It’s hard for him. He’s not an extrovert. He needs alone time. But he’s paying great attention to me and I need to focus on that for a bit. Best husband ever!

For all that I’m really frustrated with attempting to be social (and boy howdy I am) I’m overall doing ok with my life. I’m not bitter or miserable minute by minute. Just frustrated when I think about how crappy many people are.

Appreciation

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Today I am feeling very happy with the world and everything in it, so I’ll talk a little bit about what I appreciate today. 🙂

I appreciate that my wonderful Marcie let me have huge blocks of wood for my yard. Soon I will get around to finishing that project and I will have the coolest sandbox ever!

I appreciate that my darling husband tolerates my ongoing projects and obsessions. 😀

I appreciate that my daughter loves books so much. And that she is picking up words at a prodigious rate. It is getting so much easier to communicate with her.

I appreciate that my house is small enough to be easy to clean. The older I get and the more stuff I have to get done in a day the more I appreciate this. 🙂

I appreciate that Taylor offered to come help me finish the garage. It is almost entirely cleaned out! It will be done by Friday! This is so exciting. (At this point there is probably about an hour of moving stuff and an hour or two of cleaning left.)

I appreciate the heck out of the chest freezer. Man that thing makes my life better. I have a whole mess of (organic) beef and chicken. I have a huge stash of raw milk, butter, cream, and cheese. I have a freak-ton of ice cream (I buy it on sale and stock up). And then there are the ’emergency’ tv-dinner lunches for Noah’s lunch when we have nothing else. It’s so awesome. I think I have enough meat to last me the next six months and maybe longer. This pleases me immensely. We will need more ice cream and milk before then. 🙂

I appreciate the wonderful variety of food available to me here in the bay area. I like that my taste buds have been expanded in ways they wouldn’t have if I lived in middle America.

I appreciate the awesome cookbooks available to me that have taught me how to cook some of the amazing food I enjoy so much. And the baking. *swoon* The baking! I’m pretty good at baking, I have discovered. I really enjoy it.

I appreciate being comfortable financially at a time when many people aren’t. It’s a luxury. I have the luxury of staying home with my kids as long as I want to. It’s really nice.

I appreciate my new roof. Holy crap on toast do I appreciate my new roof. And I really love that we are basically off grid for our electricity usage. That makes me feel good about my impact on the planet. I’m wasteful in other places (like travel and eating meat) so I try to do what I can elsewhere.

I appreciate our wonderful car. It is fantastically efficient and well functioning. It is still pretty through absolutely no effort of mine.

I appreciate having the luxury to sit around and think extensively about what is best for my family. My life is non-stressful and non-traumatic. I get to think about family planning in a safe and comfortable environment where many options are possible. That’s amazing.

I appreciate having yards big enough to worry about. 🙂 It means that Shanna has lots of room to play and explore. And I appreciate how much she loves being outside. That bodes well. 🙂

I appreciate Ikea. My house is turning into an Ikea showroom. It’s kind of funny. But man is it useful and cheap! And I think all the stuff we bought there looks perfectly decent. Yay Ikea!

I appreciate that when I have computer problems I always find a friend to help me fix them. 😀 Man living in the valley rocks. 😀

Douchebaggery

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So on occasion I have been known to behave in a less than saint-like fashion. One might go so far as to say that once in a great great great while I’m a complete and total bitch. Of course these events are few and far between. *cough* Ok, so at least they aren’t happening weekly. I would like to think that in the realm of crazy wives I’m not so bad but I am realistic enough to know that sometimes I kind of suck. Just like my wonderful, patient, fabulous husband is on occasion a poopyhead. It happens to the best of us.

You might be wondering what’s my point? Well, my point is that Noah feels like he can’t tell anyone about me being uhm less than polite. I think this is a fairly unhealthy situation for him to be in. I think that feeling like he has to stay isolated and put up with my sometimes unpleasant behavior smacks of abuse and that’s really not cool. So whereas I’m glad he doesn’t spend a lot of time bitching about me I think that some venting occasionally is healthy. I’ve told him this and he only sort of believes me. This weekend I even cornered him in front of a friend and said the same thing. Now I’m going even further and telling him in front of the whole wide internet that it’s ok to tell people that I am mean to him sometimes. It’s ok to say, “I’m not really sure what to do when she does ‘x'”.

Really. It’s ok.

Jealousy and cliques

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I realized something important tonight. I don’t think I am any more jealous of Noah going out on dates than I am of him gaming. I am just about equally as hostile to both. Well… ok so somehow I manage to actually verbalize and lash out more when it comes to the jealousy around other women. I think that part of the reason I feel more secure in being actively hostile towards him dating is because of the overall cultural/social acceptability towards being jealous of nonmonogamy. It’s not nearly so culturally acceptable to throw screaming temper tantrums about gaming, especially not in the very limited and controlled way he does it. That’s really interesting to think about. Ok, so I’m jealous. I’m so jealous I want to hit things (and I have) and I want to cry (and I have) and I want to make him hurt/angry/upset too (I think I did that too). Why am I so jealous?

I think it’s because this plays into some of my core insecurities. I don’t feel wanted. I don’t feel liked. Ok, I’m aware that people do like me. The readership of this journal alone won’t let me follow that pity party too closely. But how many of you do I see in a week? In a month? In the average year? Yeah. I don’t have a close group of friends. I’ve never had a close group of friends for any length of time. That came about because of moving around so much as a kid. I never learned how to deal with people on an extended basis. I can do short bursts and then I burn out quickly. I feel like I have to always be ‘on’ and let me tell you I am good at that act. I can be interesting, sexy, supportive, or obnoxious depending on what I think will play best to the crowd. I can’t do it for long though. In the past week and a half I spent not quite three days with a couple of friends and then about four days with a different couple of friends. I flipped out on both sets. I think that being overall kind of down contributed heavily to the fact that I didn’t have as much energy to be ‘on’ as I needed for those lengths of time. I desperately want to be able to do the long stretches of time with people but I always lose it. I want to crawl into a hole and hide because as I start running out of energy for putting on the front I get snappy which means that I start feeling bad about being mean which leads me to think about what a horrible person I am which makes me question why anyone wants to be friends with me anyway. This really is a sucky cycle. I don’t know how to change it.

Back to how this relates to Noah. Noah is the one person in my life I really trust to want to be around me. But he wants to spend time away from me doing things without me. It doesn’t really matter whether it is gaming or dating it hurts either way. Because knowing that he wants to go off without me makes me doubt that he really wants to be around me. It makes me feel like Noah is just one more person who can’t handle me because I am such an awful bitch. And when I feel like anyone doesn’t want to be around me because I am such an awful bitch it makes me get mean. And things cycle from there.

Ok. If I can look at the cycle that means I can find a way out of it. I’m just not sure where to start. Ok, I do know where to start. But he’s not home from his date yet.

So awesome.

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I realized that I have gotten to have four dates in the past three weeks. (Ok, two of them are technically happening this week.) That’s amazing. I remain absolutely convinced that as wonderful as Noah is to be married to, he is even better to have an affair with. I have played with people who might have more technical skill in some specific area of bdsm but no one who has ever been able to climb inside my head and fuck with me the way he can. He is hands down the best lover I have ever had. He is attentive and sweet and a mean son-of-a-bitch. I so win. I get to keep him forever.

(Oh, and that cryptic entry… geez folks. Yes the sex will be with Noah. :P)

And then it happened

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And it wasn’t a big deal. I went hiking with Laura in the afternoon and came home after he left. Shanna and I snuggled and played and went to sleep reasonably early. He woke me up accidentally when he got home and we talked and figured stuff out and then had the hottest sex we’ve had in years. I guess feeling competitive is good for my drive.

I’m really surprised that I’m not upset. Now that it is over with and done there is nothing to anticipate and get nervous about. What’s done is done; there’s no sense in crying over spilled milk and all that. That’s really interesting to learn.

So much for the filter…

Talked to Noah lots.

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See, this is why I married him. We spent hours and hours talking last night. We went through all of the things that are bothering me, all of the myriad of ways that I’m upset/nervous/insecure. It was really good. He listened when I was ranting and gave me constructive feedback when I calmed down. We talked more specifically about why this is happening. It took coming up with some silly examples before I could get him to understand what this feels like. He’s a big foodie. I asked him how he would feel if I went up to The French Laundry with someone else and left him at home. He said that would upset him a lot. Ok, now you have some idea of how I feel. It’s not really as bad as all that but this is really hard. I feel like if I can get through this to the other side things will be ok. Let me rephrase: things will be ok when I get through this. No doubt in there. It’s like freaking out about getting blood drawn. It’s not my idea of a good time but afterward there won’t be a problem anymore.

Why do relationships have to be so complicated?

Fucking sucks.

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In general I don’t make posts that Noah can’t see. This is one of those times though. I feel like I’m going to puke. I’m so angsty and upset and freaked out. Noah has a date on Friday. When we originally started negotiating this it was stated as a “play date” and I come from the bdsm community where that frequently doesn’t include sex–that is my base assumption. But they are negotiating whether or not to use barriers on oral sex and he plans to fuck her.

I am so freaking out. My stomach is a ball of knots and I want to vomit. I hate this feeling. It doesn’t help that Shanna is having a hard day and I’m having a terrible time being patient with her. I was very open to the idea of playing but it snowballed so fast. We were supposed to have sex last night (yes we schedule these things) but I just couldn’t do it. The idea that he is anticipating and planning sex with someone else made me feel really revolted by the idea of him touching me. I don’t know how I am going to manage to have sex with him on Saturday at a play party when we’ve scheduled that.

This is so hard for me. I feel so completely inadequate and pathetic.

I’m doing at least some processing with him but it feels like a full dose of it wouldn’t be fair. This is the result of a lot of negotiation because it really sucks that he has to compromise on his needs so much.

But god I don’t have patience for Shanna right now and she’s been crying all day. AHHHHHHHHHH

Benefits

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I think one of the most significant benefits of being married to Noah is just how enthusiastic he is about my looks/body. My friend Marcie took some pictures of Shanna and I recently and I was actually pretty surprised by how big I am. I don’t feel that big, but I guess I am. They are really cute pictures and I don’t think I look bad I just look heavy. No wonder I’m getting asked so often if I’m pregnant. 😀 I expressed to Noah my surprise at how heavy I look and he said, “Mmmmm. Yeah, you are totally hot.”

If I were really concerned about being thin he would be the worst person to be married to. I’m not that fussed though so he’s just awesome.

Six things

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First: I am a good wife. I told Noah to go game because he hasn’t been able to much and he’s really stressed out and overburdened at work.

Second: I still haven’t heard about the comp exam. I took the test 25 days ago. I have been patient. Now I’m starting to freak out.

Third: I bought a nasal irrigation thingy. Hopefully this will allow me to resume my normal course of breathing.

Fourth: New diapers arrived! I am nerdy enough to find this very exciting.

Fifth: Family support today over the fact that both my sister and mother are over-the-top crazy. I appreciate the validation there.

Sixth: In other family news, looks like my sister is dealing again. But of course it would be my fault if she went to jail.

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.

One of the many benefits of my husband.

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He’s perfectly happy to pretend that he cares about something trivial and he fakes empathy really well. This means that when I say, “I want you to express an opinion about this” he will come up with something and usually something that more or less agrees with my preferences. Well, when I’m asking about something that he doesn’t actually care about. If he cares then he doesn’t always agree with me. But I can drag him to the pattern store and tell him he gets to help me pick out a pattern and he will actually do it! Isn’t that great?! 🙂

A very good day.

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Today I made four batches of Cinnamon rolls. This was after a fudge on the first attempt when the dough wouldn’t rise. Bother. I also made and put in the fridge: molasses crinkle dough, sugar cookie dough, and refrigerator cookies.

I went through nearly 10 lbs of flour and like 3 lbs of sugar. I need to go buy more flour before I can make more cookies. 🙂

This is so much more fun that studying for the comp exam. 🙂 I asked Noah for a laptop-free day and he was awesome about it. He read me some Peter Beagle stuff for a while and he spent some time reading The Moral Animal and talking to me about it. We also MST3K’ed a few Christmas movies. It’s really been a wonderful day. 🙂

And now my darling little boobie monster is falling asleep while eating. I’ve been impressed by her overall good nature today as I’ve spent very little time with her.

Appreciation

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I appreciate that I have a brilliant husband who pays a tremendous amount of attention to me without assigning negative judgment to what he sees. He can help me figure out my motivations because he doesn’t hand me any of his own baggage in the conversation. There are no sly innuendos in the conversations.

He knows me better than anyone in the world ever has or ever will. Yet he doesn’t give me advice until I ask for it because he respects me. Can anything get better than that?

{dirtier} Well hot damn

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From the filter label savvy readers will assume this is about my sex life. They would be right. Which is to say: holy crap I have a sex life again.

So, who was wondering how long it would take us to resume having sex? I was. We sorta tried a week ago and it was a resoundingly unsuccessful attempt. It hurt so bad it made me cry and Shanna woke up screaming just a couple of minutes into it. So I don’t count that.

Which means that it took us four weeks. Things are not completely back to normal in that department, but given that I’ve been thinking about it and Noah has been exceptionally patient I figured it was time to get back on that particular horse. I would say we took it slow, but we didn’t. Heh. We don’t have time for slow, leisurely love making at this point. Shanna’s sleep schedule is still very unpredictable. I did manage to get her to sleep lying on her own. I did it by breaking one of those rules they hand down from on high about parenting: Thou Shalt Not Lie Thy Baby On Her Stomach To Sleep. But but… she won’t go to sleep on her back! So fuck ’em. She’s sleeping great on her tummy right now and they (whoever ‘they’ are) can kiss my ass.

I’m rambling. Sex! It happened! It required periodic renegotiations mid-way, things like “Pull out, I need more lube” “Oh my god stop putting so my pressure on my perineum” and “I can’t bend that way right now”. I call that a roaring success. I came; he came. That was the goal and so despite it not being the most earth shattering of sex it’s a beginning. w00t.

Reason # 4384953 Noah is the best husband ever

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So today we had a weird interaction in the morning. I wasn’t sure what caused it. But I felt like it was hostile. So after I did my withdraw/pissy thing I thought about it and couldn’t figure out what caused it. So I asked.

My wonderful husband then proceeded to explain what he interpreted about my actions and tone of voice and I did the same about his. We were both reacting to unintended slights and misunderstood tones. We apologized for our respective halves of the misunderstanding and fuss. Then we cuddled and renewed our membership in our mutual admiration society.

Have I mentioned that I love my husband?

Not funny.

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Noah is a shit. No really. A complete and total brat. Some days I think I should tickle him despite his screeching protests. I can ignore getting my nose licked in retaliation.

Butt head.

I don’t appreciate his hyperbole mocking my overreactions.