Kate, Katie, Susan and Sue

Time Flies!

2012-01-09T12:16:00.001-08:00

Wow, November 11. Go figure. I got a little note from Merry Mom asking how I’d been and realized I hadn’t posted in TWO MONTHS. YIKES. I guess I’m due for an update!

All is well here. BUSY. Like, crazy busy. As usual.

So, the big news is I survived my organization of information class. I really had a VERY hard time with it. I felt stupid the whole semester and was so glad it was my only class. I somehow managed to get an A, and when I tell you it was a miracle and in no small part due to my partners in the small group project, I am not lying. Not even a little bit. I had a lot of help from our local friends too, who attempted to teach me XML and database building, and thanks to my husband who took lots of time off so I could get caught up and get homework done and whatnot.

I am registered for 2 classes this semester: Ethics for Library and Information Professionals and Introduction to Archives. I’m excited about it, neither class seems too hard core and both seem interesting, more importantly. Classes start Wednesday. I’ve gotten a volunteer job at a local archives, so I should get some hands on learning, which should help with a paper I have to write for the archives class! I hope the archives class and volunteer experience helps me decide once and for all if that’s the direction I want to go in.

AFS kept me busy. There were some problems with Kristin and her new family and their other student, so I wound up doing an intervention, which is not really what I think I’m good at, but I did it and got the family to stay together for a little so I was proud of that accomplishment.

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. We did the Turkey Trot in the morning—my goal was to do it in less than an hour and I accomplished that goal, which made me happy. My dad was here and made the turkey, but we were all tired from walking and running so I can’t say as we did very much. We had a little birthday party for my niece that weekend, and I really can’t believe she turned 3. The time is just flying by!

December was a whirlwind! Emily and I went to see Diane Keaton in November and decided to go back and see Michael Ian Black on December 1. He was HILARIOUS—we were at 6th and I Synagogue and he started a joke that mentioned Anne Frank (it wasn’t a joke about Anne Frank) and he looked up at the stained glass window waiting for lightning to strike and said, “Well, if it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen now!” and everyone was just laughing hysterically. It’s the second time I’ve seen him, the first time doing a solo act, and he was really great.

We took Kristin and fellow student Ilaria to Wolf Trap for the annual holiday sing-a-long and for pizza afterwards. They had a lot of fun and I enjoyed having them along for the tradition. The following weekend we spent some time at my sister’s and then went to our friends Paul and Kris’s house and church for their annual Christmas pageant and dinner. It was really lovely, and wouldn’t seem like Christmas if we didn’t go.

Unfortunately, I was in a minor car accident the following week, and my car was in the shop until after Christmas. I was driving to meet some friends for dinner and a kitten ran in the road. I stopped and the person coming towards me stopped, but the guy behind me didn’t stop and hit me. At first glance, it didn’t look so bad, but ultimately cost Allstate somewhere in the neighborhood of $6000 when all was said and done. They did give me a rental, and I was pleased about that since I put almost 800 miles on it in just over a week’s time.

The following weekend was my Christmas concert. This is my second year with the Stafford Regional Choral Society and in November I was elected to the board of directors. I really thought that this Christmas concert would be the best concert I’d ever sung in, and I dare say I was correct. I did a lot of rehearsing at home with the on line tracks, and managed to sing without my music, which made me happy since I didn’t have to lug a bunch of books around! The choir chairman was nice enough to give me rides to rehearsals and the concert since my car was out of commission and I hadn’t gotten my rental yet.

The following day, Monday, my dad and his girlfriend decided to make a big turkey pre-Christmas dinner, and since I was still eating turkey from Thanksgiving, I decided to go ahead and invite some people over. We had about 15 people who came to eat turkey and still had plenty of leftovers! Leah had a ball. Our neighbors came and brought her gifts and some other friends came and brought us fresh eggs from their chickens. It was great!

Tuesday, for their first Christmas present, I took Dad and Linda to see ICE! at the Gaylord National Resort. Mike’s and my theme for Christmas this year was cherishing old memories and making new ones. To that end, we made a conscious decision not to buy “stuff” that people wouldn’t want or wear, and instead to either make things or make memories. A few years ago, we bought tickets for the whole family to go see ICE! but couldn’t afford it this year, so I just took Dad and Linda (Leah got in free). We had lunch with my sister beforehand and then went to the show, which was really lovely—it had a Madagascar theme, which didn’t mean much to the rest of us, but I enjoyed it anyway. It was a really nice afternoon. Midway through, I got a text from my mom that she was coming up early, so I prepared myself for her arrival as well!

Wednesday, Mom came and Mike and I went down to Richmond to pick up Penny’s brother Mickey at the airport. He is in boarding school out in Kentucky (Or Cuh-cucky as Leah calls it) and needed a place to go when the school closed for 2 weeks for Christmas. He took one look at us when he saw us at the gate and kept on walking and when I stopped him to ask if he was Mickey, he said he had to get his bags and took off to the baggage claim. That was essentially the high point of his visit. He was a rude little bugger.

Thursday, Mom came back to our house to stay for a week plus. She and my sister started arguing and at this point I can’t say who’s wrong or who’s right, I just really wish it hadn’t happened. My goal for this Christmas was for everyone to get along, no fighting, and to have a peaceful and calm time. It didn’t happen. By Christmas Day, I had a nervous breakdown. There were SO MANY people and SO MUCH was going on, it was crazy!!! Friday, my buddy Joe arrived and Saturday we went to my sister’s for Christmas Eve.

Christmas Day was here, my sister brought a stray with her, so if you’re keeping count, there were 13 people here. Judy’s stray wanted to make wassail for everyone and the crockpot wouldn’t hold it all, so we had to do it on the stove, which he fretted over literally all day. The present situation, even though we all scaled back, was again totally crazy out of control—even if you only buy each person 1 thing, that’s 13 presents for 13 people (for a total of 169), and you know that no one bought ONLY one thing for each of the kids. So it was pandemonium.

For our part, Mike and I made each family member (Mom, Dad, Judy, Lucas, and Joe) a scrapbook of memories of our times together. It was a special moment for everyone and there were a lot of tears flowing as everyone looked through their pictures and swapped books and traded stories. We also made a photo collage of all of us making funny faces (mostly unintentionally).

And framed them. Everyone got one of those. So it helped lighten the mood a bit from all the other crying.

Dinner was the traditional roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. Mickey announced the first night he was here that he wasn’t eating a thing I cooked, all he wanted to eat was beef ramen noodles, despite the fact that he doesn’t eat beef. He informed me that the noodles are only beef flavored. I asked him where the beef flavoring came from and he couldn’t tell me. I read the package and sure enough they contain beef, but I didn’t give a damn and didn’t tell him. And I also let him eat Yorkshire pudding, despite it having beef “flavoring” in it. :-)

Dad and I did our traditional trip to Richmond to see the Ginter Gardens Festival of Lights, which was beautiful, as was the weather! It wasn’t warm, but it was far warmer than usual when I had to stand by the bonfire for an hour mid-way through. They expanded their repertoire slightly so we got to see some new lights and of course, we got crapped on at our favorite awful Burger King, where we ALWAYS get lousy service. It was a fun night!

Post-Christmas was similarly busy. Our “memory” present to Mom was a trip to the Melting Pot, so I took her out one night for that. Joe decided I needed to start watching Ghost Adventures and Ancient Aliens, and we invented a drinking game to correspond with those (every time someone yelled “DUDE!” in Ghost Adventures or said “Aliens” or “extra terrestrials” or some variant there of in Ancient Aliens, we took a drink). By the time we were done, (and let me be clear here, we were drinking Mike’s Hard Lemonades, this was not serious alcohol! But I haven’t had a drink in probably 5 or 6 years and Joe is a real lightweight when it comes to alcohol so this was never going to end well), I was sitting on the floor convinced I could understand every word some German guy was saying, and Joe was moaning about a headache, which took him most of the next day to get rid of.

We spent one day with Andy and Melissa bowling and taking Mickey to Coldstone Creamery, since he wanted ice cream. Mike took the whole week off, which was nice for me to have a break!

I took Mickey on my famous nighttime tour of DC in an effort to get him to spend some portion of the day either not watching TV or playing around on the computer and to interact with some member of our family. I think he enjoyed it once we left, although he put up a bit of a fight about going. I was excited to see the new Martin Luther King Jr Memorial, which I hadn’t seen yet and somehow almost drove past. You can’t believe how big that thing is. The pictures I’ve seen of it do it no justice at all. It is literally massive.

We essentially did nothing to celebrate New Year’s Eve. We forced Mickey away from the computer 10 seconds before the ball dropped on Times Square so at least he could say he saw it, although he wasn’t much impressed. Mike went back to work on the 3rd, so I tried to come up with things to do with Mickey every day. We went and saw a 3D movie—my first one ever, The Adventures of TinTin, which was OK, went to the mall, and had lots of Thai food, which is in short supply in rural KY. Friday we started getting ready for our 3 Kings party, which was seriously scaled back this year—half what it was last year. I didn’t want to have a huge crowd and be exhausted, so I decided just to have a few people and call it a night. Mickey announced the beef stroganoff smelled terrible and that he was going to sit in the kitchen so he could leave, and then after watching me cook, clean, and set up for 2 days, just as we were ready to sit down, he asked if he could make ramen noodles. I should have told him what he could do with his ramen noodles, but held my temper and told him no as politely as I could. When I sat down to dinner on the other end of the table, my friend asked me what was wrong, that I looked like I was ready to commit murder. Haha.

We dropped him at the airport yesterday and spent the rest of the day tidying up. I had a nice evening last night, preparing English tea and watching the Downton Abbey premiere on PBS.

So that brings us to January. Leah is in dance lessons—has been doing it for over a month now and LOVES it. She is particularly fond of tap dancing and although she is the tiniest and youngest girl in her class, she is doing just great and learning a lot. We have started back to Toddlin’ Time on Tuesdays and now are on the hunt for pre-school. I am touring one place tomorrow which is probably the one that is farthest from my house and at the far end of where I am willing to go. I start school on Wednesday. We are going to my dad’s for a week next week, but Mike is staying home again to have some peace and quiet.

Otherwise, I am watching lots of Quantum Leap on NetFlix, trying to keep up with housework (a losing battle), and trying to make good on my New Year’s resolution of cutting back and doing less while making it mean more. I would like to get back into Weight Watchers, but every time I say that, I go for 3 weeks and quit again. I need to find the motivation I had in 2008.

So I’ll probably write again in another 2 months when Merry says “WAKE UP!” :)

2AM!

2011-11-11T22:59:00.001-08:00

Yup, it’s almost 2AM and here I sit, wide awake. *SIGH!* We had a crazy day yesterday starting when Leah woke up at 4AM. I never quite got it right thereafter. I tried going back to sleep around 9AM only to have company arrive 20 minutes later. I tried going to sleep around 1:30, only to have the contractor show up and start banging like hell and running an air compressor!. He left and I finally feel asleep around 2 and slept for 3 solid hours. So of course, now I CAN’T sleep and I’m due to leave for Woodbridge in 6 hours. AUGH! On the plus side, Leah will be with Melissa tomorrow, so I can sleep and get lots of other things done.

I have continued weeding things out around here. I managed to eliminate an entire cabinet of DVD’s—placing the ones I was keeping on 2 shelves of the cabinet the TV now sits on, and the few (like 5) others I’m not keeping are going to Goodwill. We are conflicted about what to do with the cabinet. We’ve owned it since we first moved in together. We bought it so I would have something in which to store my clothes and it has also been used to store pantry items and DVD’s in its history. I am reluctant to part with it, so part of tomorrow’s task will be to empty the crawlspace and see if we can find a spot and a use for it in there. I had another cabinet downstairs with glass doors that Leah was forever trying to break into, and I decided I should get rid of that. Tonight while I was watching the documentary Winnebago Man (highly recommend it, by the way!), I cleared it off and moved it out, but felt the space left behind was too empty. So I took the glass doors off it and filled it with Leah’s toys. I like it better than having something of a pile by the rear door, and hopefully it will inspire both her and me to keep her toys picked up.

I started Christmas shopping this weekend. Compared to last year, I have a very small list—we really went overboard last year and I don’t want to do that this year. We are hosting Christmas and hopefully my sister will host Christmas Eve, so some of the pressure will be off a little bit. As I think I said before, Penny’s brother will be with us for the holidays and I’m trying to consider what I can do to keep him entertained. I’m sure it’ll be an entirely different experience having a boy around. But I wonder if he’ll be anything like Penny! I am considering a day trip to Philadelphia, but it would be easier with a second driver, and also depends on if Mike is planning to work or not during the week before Christmas and New Year’s. He often does.

This week will be busy—I have my end of the year book club party Wednesday and meeting up with a classmate and then seeing Diane Keaton Thursday. I have been busily working on my NaNo book, and it’s coming along nicely. I decided to erase stuff from the white board when I finish that chapter or section, and it helps me see the progress I am making. I need to find out when registration opens for the spring semester and get registered for next semester’s classes. There is one I want to take that is only open once a year, so it’s important I get it in now to try and determine if it’s a direction I want to go in!

Well, I guess I’d best TRY to get some sleep!!!! Talk to you all later!

Bloggety, Blog, Blog, Blog

2011-10-30T20:29:00.001-07:00

The last time I blogged was on 9/11 and little did I know that all hell would continue to break loose around here. We got our basement fixed up beautifully—I’m happy to say you would never know anything happened. There is one less couch and there is a lot of extra lighting now, which is awesome, but other than that, life is back to normal downstairs!

In the meantime, the car needed new brakes and I needed glasses, which added up to a lot of money!!!!! Thankfully we were able to get both done and finish paying off the credit card bills, because things just kept getting crazier!

Unfortunately, just as we were preparing to go to NY for my dad’s 60th, my mom called to say her long time companion Jim had collapsed after having suffered a massive heart attack. He passed away on September 28th. Having been a big part of our lives for a number of our years, this was a really sad loss for the family. I was thus in Florida for almost 3 weeks. During this time, Kristin from Iceland moved out. I was disappointed in a way, but I think it was probably for the best and since I am still working with her new family’s other student, I will see her here and there. I very much doubt we will host next year although I said that this year, so who knows, but I’m excited to say that Penny’s brother Mickey is coming to spend Christmas with us this year, so it’ll be kind of like celebrating with an exchange student anyway and we’ll get 2 weeks of fun before sending him on his way.

Florida was a good time, despite the circumstances. I found things for Leah to do in and around Vero Beach and we went to the Brevard Zoo, SeaWorld, and Lion Country Safari. I do believe the kid knows more about animals than any other 2 year old around! Her particular favorites were the sharks and penguins at SeaWorld. I also took her to see the movie A Dolphin Tale, which she loved and went around telling everyone she could find that the dolphin broke its tail. We came home from SeaWorld with a 3 foot long Shamu, and just recently Leah ripped all the stuffing from ‘Mu’s tail and has informed me that Mu has a broken tail like the dolphin. When I re-stuff Mu, we shall remedy his broken tail with a band-aid! We also paid some extra money to go pet a rhinoceros, which was a pretty awesome experience that I won’t soon forget! Leah liked taking a scrub brush to him and tickling him. Whenever I ask her about the rhino, she says, “BRUSH!” (you can kind of see the rhino behind my mom in the picture above) So we did a lot of things we might not otherwise have gotten to do and I got to go to the beach (even if it wasn’t Myrtle Beach) and just chill out and help out my mom as needed. We kind of tossed around the idea of Disney World, I think more because Mom and I wanted to go than we really wanted to take Leah, but cooler heads prevailed—she really is still too young and we want her to remember that first time forever. Another couple of years!

This class I am taking is really kicking my butt. For 3 weeks, I basically did nothing, as the professor told me not to worry about it, so I’ve been playing catch up ever since. We have group projects to do, and I’m happy to say I have great group members who really picked up the slack for me, and so I am now going to work doubly hard to make up for the work I didn’t do on Assignment 2. Only 36 days till the class is over, THANK GOD, and let us hope I never take a class about organizing data and information EVER AGAIN! Next semester I hope to take Introduction to Archiving so I can see if I really want to pursue that as a career option like I’ve been thinking I might.

I had fun in October going to the Kennedy Center to see Les Mis with some members of my choir, and then spending that evening answering phones for WAMU at their annual member drive. We had a recordbreaking night, getting $35,000 in 3 hours, which is pretty incredible. I love volunteering during The Big Broadcast—the most interesting mix of people volunteer and we had fun table. It was nice to unwind and let my hair down after the stress of Jim’s death and the classwork piling up. The production of Les Mis was spellbinding—literally I wept many times and it was just a great performance.

Leah and I have been having a lot of fun getting ready for Halloween. We’ve been doing little projects now, like baking bread and making pumpkin-shaped jello and pumpkin-shaped crayons from all the crayons she broke to bits. I went over to the local teacher supply store and bought a few charts for the walls so we are learning our colors and taking little scavenger hunts. We talk about the weather and count the days on the calendar. We went to the pumpkin patch and carved pumpkins today. It’s fun and keeps her engaged. I am looking forward to getting her into preschool, but am not in any rush. We are keeping busy with a music class and MOPS and various and sundry other activities and are looking into gymnastics. She’s a fun kid and able to do so much more. Even though I miss snuggling with a newborn, I do enjoy these toddler days! I like being crafty and even little things turn into a lot of fun for her, so I try to come up with something to keep her interested and teach her something new, while allowing me to stretch my creative muscles and keep from getting cranky!

Hopefully our bathroom project will get underway soon. We finally got our loan approved and got the money to pay the contractor, so we’re ready to go. We picked a design and that’s that! It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly 3 months since the Great Flood, and while it had unintended consequences, it’s fun to think of the positives of the situation and how we’re going to come out of it. We also paid off our car this month, ahead of schedule, which loosens up our budget some to do some other things. It’s the first time in 6 years we don’t have a car payment. We nearly got hit today by the local ne’er-do-well on our way out to get pumpkins to carve, and I thought, “Wouldn’t that just be my luck!?” but thankfully he got back on his side of the road with about 6 inches to spare before he hit us.

Joe and I went and saw the MST3K live show, Cinematic Titanic, again on Thursday night. It’s a fun way for him and I to celebrate our frienshipversary—this year being #17. It won’t be long now before I’ve known him more than half my life, which I find mindboggling. We had our traditional Bertucci’s dinner and then walked around DC for a couple of hours before the show started. Afterwards, we got on line for the signing and I got myself a poster to have signed. We also discovered Joel was allowing people to take pictures, so of course, we took full advantage. I like that all of us are modeling sexy eyewear! :-D My next big celebrity trip will be in November to see Diane Keaton at 6th and I Synagogue, which should be quite interesting. I enjoy watching her, and she seems like she’d just be a really nice and down to earth person, so I’m looking forward to meeting her! I wonder if she’s going to wear something crazy or just dress casually.

In general, I’m just feeling quite content with life. I seem to have made friends with some exceptionally kind and low key people—just last week I was able to go out to dinner with 3 new girlfriends and we all sat around and laughed and chattered until before we knew it, 2+ hours had gone by. I’ve joined a new book club here in town, which is fun, and my NoVa book club seems to have gotten back on track, surviving the 7 year itch. I’ve become very friendly with a wonderful couple down the street and their daughter, all of whom think Leah is the best kid in the universe (and of course, I quite agree!).

I’m keeping busy, busy, busy and keep telling Mike, “I promise, I’m going to calm down…after this week”. Fortunately he’s been patient with what has been a ridiculous autumn!

There have been a lot of fun little things going on and I always think, “Oh, I should blog about that!” but usually I am too tired! It’s a shame—Leah says some damned cute stuff that I’d like to remember and we have a lot of fun and do a lot of things, but time just keeps on slipping away… I really can’t believe tomorrow is Halloween! Then it’s November, and I do debate doing NaNoWriMo just so I can get this damned whiteboard down from my bulletin board and finish my book! And then in a few short weeks, it will be Thanksgiving. Mike and I have been debating what to do in April for our 10th wedding anniversary, and yet it seems like just yesterday we were getting married. I feel too young to be this old and too old at the same time.

I’ll close here and who knows when I’ll blog again! The new Facebook sucks, but it doesn’t seem to keep me from using it, so of course, you can get my updates there if I don’t update here :) Ta ta!

9/11 Remembered

2011-09-11T09:30:00.001-07:00

It’s hard to believe it’s 9/11 for the 10th time. I usually don’t tune in and watch the TV coverage—it was a day that I will never forget. However, I suppose this year being the 10th anniversary of it happening, I decided to get up this morning and watch some of it. Leah soon joined me and together we watched and she patted my cheeks and dried my tears. Facebook is abuzz with where everyone was and how everyone felt, and I have thought about it all week, but don’t have enough space in a mere status update to post everything I would want to about that day.

Mike and I were fairly newly engaged and planning to attend three weddings that fall. It was a happy and loving time. That morning, I had to report to the office where I worked in Boston—as an itinerant teacher, typically I would be on the road 4 days a week, but not that day. I was in my office doing something and a co-worker came in and said, “A plane just hit the World Trade Center.” I thought he was joking, but then I thought back to other people flying little prop planes into things like the Kremlin and figured ok, maybe it did, but maybe it wasn’t such a big deal.

Working in an office dedicated to the blind, there was no TV that had any cable or any kind of reception. Consequently, we had to rely only on what we could get from the radio. That day’s volunteer receptionist flipped on WBZ and we heard about the plane and the WTC being on fire and started to think maybe there was something more to this than just a simple accident. And just a few minutes later, the second plane hit. We all just stood there, trying to figure out in our confusion what the hell was going on, and not being able to see it.

The woman who ran our small store there managed to find one of those handheld portable transistor-type televisions and all of us crowded around it to watch the drama unfold on about a 4 inch TV screen. We tried using a TV screen magnifier for the supply closet, but the picture became blurry and distorted. We moved into the conference room and held the TV up to the window, where the reception came in the best and just stood there. There was a phone, and since the planes had left from Boston, we were all calling our loved ones as the drama unfolded.

I called Mike and was so relieved to hear his voice. I asked him where he was and he said they were all leaving early and he was going to try to get to me. Because I didn’t work in a T-accessible location, I told him to go home to our apartment and I would meet him there.

Just moments later, the first tower collapsed. I will never forget the look on my co-worker Robert’s face. He heard the news on the radio back in his studio and came running in to join the rest of us, and just stood there, stock still with his jaw dropped open. There was a sense that what we were seeing wasn’t really happening, and of course the reports from the Pentagon started rolling in, and suddenly there were reports that there were 50 planes in the air unaccounted for, and the combination of total fear and confusion and disbelief and grief settled into my chest with a chilling numbness that I will never, ever forget to my dying day.

The second tower collapsed, and I went home. For some reason, I had an aerial antenna stored in our laundry room—something I had brought with me from Arkansas where a friend had given it to me. I collected Mike and we went back to my office and plugged the aerial antenna into the conference room TV and miraculously got a picture to come in by setting the whole thing in front of the window. Our whole office came through and we all sat at the conference table and watched it together. There were a lot of hugs, lots of crying, and just a sense of togetherness. The word came down from on high that we should take the time to deal with this in whatever way any of us saw fit, so I decided to go home, and I took a couple of days off.

In that intervening time, my sister called and said, “Did you hear about Shannon Adams"?” I hadn’t, but was stunned to hear that a boy I played with as a child in his grandmother’s yard and behind the Baptist church had perished in those towers. I called my mother and her reaction was “What was she doing there?” I said “not she, Mom, he, Shannon Adams” and her reaction was “Holy shit.” Neither of us could speak. Shannon was an amazing guy—he was literally friendly and nice to everyone and you would NEVER see him without a smile on his face. It was a blow to all of us to believe he was gone—his family hadn’t heard from him at all in the aftermath, and to this day, his body has never been recovered.

When I think of those early days, the word that comes to me most is fear. There were rumors swirling like crazy about “what was next” and what we needed to do to prepare ourselves for whatever hell was going to be unleashed on us next. The general feeling among the people I was with was that now they had our attention and the real terror was about to begin. I remember getting a phone call that all our paper and water supplies were going to be tainted and that we should go buy as much bottled water and toilet paper and paper towels as we could get our hands on. For probably the only time in my life, I had a decent emergency supply kit with flashlights, water, batteries, canned goods, and more, stocked up in the sunroom of our apartment. Being that these were pre-Facebook days, and in fact, there wasn’t much on the internet to speak of, we spent hours on the phone with family members and friends, pledging our love to each other, and made silent oaths to cherish each day as it came, since there were suddenly no guarantees that something crazy wouldn’t happen out of the blue.

The past ten years have been challenging for our country, no doubt about it. I think the nation in many ways is far more divided than it ever was. I have had times in the past ten years when I have gotten very, very politically active, and one of the best times of my life was going with my sister to meet Cindy Sheehan and march on Washington with her crowd.

This week I’ve given a lot of thought to how I want to be as a person and how I wish our country was. I think back to September 10, when there was a freedom from care and worry about security and I could have walked into the Smithsonian without a bag search, or gotten on a plane and had my husband walk right up to the gate with me.

I have concluded one thing: I never, ever want to live in that state of fear again. The constant fear and panic and what-if thinking was exhausting and debilitating.

I also don’t want to contribute any more to the division. I have a lot of opinions about the current state of affairs, how we got here, what we need to do to get out of it, but a recent interaction with a friend who has widely divergent views from mine led me to conclude “Why bother?” There is nothing you can say to anyone who believes anything totally different than you that will make them change their minds—believe me, I’ve tried. And it is tempting to jump on the bandwagon of those who do tend to agree with you, to form an “us versus them” mentality, but that’s not going to accomplish much either. So from here out, I’m just going to keep my mouth shut, smile politely, perhaps on the inside think, “This guy is a real f***ing idiot!” and move on with my day. I am going to form my own opinions, not just parrot the opinions of the popular ideologues and talking heads on any side of the equation, and my present opinion was formed by 9/11 and it was this:

What matters most is people. And whatever we can do to make everyone’s lives better is what we should do. And if something isn’t going to make our lives better, then we should not.

That’s what I learned from a bunch of guys flying planes into important places in the United States. Maybe it’s not the lesson they wanted me to learn, but I’ve learned it through non-judgement, forgiveness, compassion, and love. And for that goodness to come out of something so horrific, I think it’s a pretty good legacy for all of us, but especially for me.

GAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

2011-08-30T10:31:00.001-07:00

When I say this summer has been the craziest summer ever, I mean that quite literally. Not one thing has happened that we planned on, and everything is just going crazy all at once.

Mid-July I was trolling the “Hosting with AFS” Facebook board and feeling all nostalgic when a post popped up from a mom in New Zealand who was looking for a host family for her daughter. I spoke with AFS about the possibility of being a welcome family for that girl, and was told she had a placement in the works but that if we wanted to be a welcome family, we should contact our area team. So we did and were immediately fast tracked to be a welcome family. It took a couple of weeks and we were initially matched with a girl from Finland but they found her a permanent home, so then it was a whirlwind of who we would choose to take. It finally came down to Hong Kong and Iceland as the two countries we’d host from and, deciding to take a break from Asia, we chose the girl from Iceland. We were told she’d be a late arrival since we started everything so late in the summer, but surprise, surprise, it was all approved and we had roughly one week between when we were allowed to contact Kristin and when we had to pick her up. She arrived on August 12 and starts school on September 6th. More on her time here to follow. But first…

In the middle of the matching, interviewing, and applications process for that, I flew to Tucson for 10 days to start my library degree. It was the most stressful 10 days of school I’ve ever endured, not to mention the two weeks leading up to it, which was a “reading period” that involved reading a couple thousand pages of information and attempting to synthesize it before 8 straight days of classes, group projects, paper research and writing, library tours, and computer projects. By day 2, I ran from the classroom and hid in the bathroom and cried. It was hot, I had jetlag, I missed my baby, I was stressed, and I was staying in a dorm I dubbed “The Pit”. As a bit of a reward for my survival, Mike let me book my last night in a swanky hotel near the airport and a friend gave me a ride so I didn’t have to pay a cab. The morning I was due to leave, the flight was oversold, and so I offered to give up my seat, which got me a $300 travel voucher for future travel. Since the AFS host moms from last year are planning on a trip to Las Vegas this fall, I can probably travel basically free, which is a good thing, since…

The day after Kristin arrived, I went to brunch with friends. I got home to find Mike and our neighbor frantically running up and down the stairs. The toilet upstairs had overflowed, and Mike and Kristin had been unable to shut it off. The resulting flood swept into our basement and I called the fire department, not really knowing what else to do, which resulted in giant holes being knocked in the ceiling to drain out the water. Two days later, the cleaning company and insurance company arrived, and we’ve been ceiling-less ever since. Our carpet looks practically brand new however! Work begins tomorrow—an electrician is coming to install some new lights downstairs so it won’t be so dark, and then the contractor will come and do the dry wall, mud, paint, etc.

Unfortunately, when the cleaning company ripped up the bathroom floor, they discovered black mold! OF COURSE THEY DID! So, now we have to get that cleaned up. They talked about the clean up process and how basically we will need to take out the vanity and get that replaced, as well as the floor. In looking over our options, we’ve decided to have the bathroom replaced. Everything in there is kind of basic grade, not very nice stuff, so if we’re going to do it, we’re going to do it right and not half-ass it.

So then came the crazy weather phenomena, like the earthquake and then a crazy thunderstorm from hell that knocked over Mike’s radio antenna. That now has to be either repaired and re-installed or replaced. Then came Hurricane Irene, which caused our power to go out for about 12 hours. When it came back on, the air conditioning no longer worked. Believing it to be an a/c problem, we called the emergency service line of our heating and air contractor, but when they came out, they discovered that a blower inside the furnace had burned out, and in putting in a new one, the entire system was off balance and making all kinds of crazy noise. The air conditioner itself is just fine and dandy, but because the furnace controls the movement of the air, it has to be dealt with as part of the air conditioning system.

They came out this morning to quote us the price for repairing and for replacing the furnace, and we are going to go ahead and replace the damned thing. It’s 11 years old and we would probably be piece-mealing it for the next few years till it reached the end of its natural life cycle, so we might as well just take care of it and be done with it. They are coming to work on Thursday.

Just as a reminder, in case you’ve forgotten, we’ve had a 17 year old from Iceland here through this entire venture.

So upon discovering all this, I had myself a 30 minute nervous breakdown, walked around the block, called my dad, tossed a couple of rocks, and now I’m ready to roll. We’ve been wanting to a lot of these repairs for a while now, and this is kind of the impetus we need and the opportunity to do things that we would have liked to do for some time. I have decided to turn into an eternal optimist as a result of all this. My opinion now is “Better the furnace died in August than in December and we freeze half to death!”

I will call the insurance company again tonight and see what’s what. Hopefully they’ll cover some of it, but I have my doubts. I was talking with my neighbor yesterday and suggested that he sprinkle holy water between our two plots of land. He thought I was kidding till he heard about the furnace, but now I’m sure he’s thinking about it. :)

Hello, Old Friend

2011-07-18T11:42:00.001-07:00

It’s been a while! I think I say that every time I update the blog, as I should, since my best intentions to regularly update don’t seem to happen. Well… Here we are. It’s July. July. JULY!? Jeez! I can’t hardly believe it ;0D

So much has changed since the last post. Penny is gone. She has returned to Thailand. She misses us, doubtless, and we miss her too. It was an extremely challenging year for all of us, and I’m glad it’s over, but also quite proud of our family and how we pushed through. The last month was a whirlwind—we did a lot of sightseeing and traveling. She got to go to Luray to see the caverns, we took her up to Baltimore, and of course the big NYC trip. It was a blast. We had a good-bye party for her the last weekend she was here and at least she got to see everyone one last time and know that so many people cared about her, whether she accepted their love and care or not.

I’ve busily put my grad school career back on track. I did everything on the checklist pre-departure, and the class went live last week, so I’ve been busting my @ss, doing readings and homework and tons of writing. The message board is all abuzz with travelers and locals swapping tips, and last night I sat down and printed out maps and bus schedules and watched a video about the dorm I’ll be staying in. It has free laundry facilities, and is right next door to a student union with a convenience store, so at least I can run over and get about 5000000000000 gallons of water every day. I also participated in an on-line advisement session and “met” my advisor, Tom, who seems like a nice guy. I hope he’s a nice grader. Haha I’m learning new words like crazy, and am committed to doing as much as I can in terms of getting the readings done and being prepared. With this type of kamikaze class, 2 weeks reading, 1 week in Tucson, and 1 week post-class busting my @ss to finish projects and whatnot, I’m so glad that I’ll be on a semester schedule afterwards. Mike and I splurged and got a new laptop to take with me, although he isn’t yet done perfecting it, so I’ve only touched it to take it out of the box and not been able to use it since. Supposedly tonight he and Andy will finish it up, and hopefully I’ll be able to use it! I stole the desk from Penny’s room and have set up what I call the LIS Command Center in the empty corner of our bedroom, and would like to have the laptop up there, since there are far fewer distractions.

But I’m basically very excited about going and learning and meeting all these new people. My dad will be here minding Leah and taking orders from Mike, so while I’m not sure exactly how this battle of wills is going to turn out, I’m pleased I won’t be here to witness it! The three of them are so stubborn and they all like to have things their own way immediately, so it should be interesting.

On the Leah front, things are going very well. She is in and out of potty training, does it when she feels like and not when she doesn’t. She knows WHAT to do, but doesn’t always feel like it, and often says, “Potty!” just because she enjoys watching us jump around and get her on the toilet, only to find out she doesn’t actually have to go. She seems especially fond of this little trick when she either doesn’t want to do something (sit at the dinner table) or is bored of her current endeavor (going to the grocery store) and wants to mix it up a bit. Her favorite movies at the moment are Tangled and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the Johnny Depp version) and she is obsessed with her cousin Dot Dot.

On the horizon is meeting up with a fellow AFS family and trans-racial adoptive family (weird I met someone on Facebook who hosted a girl from Thailand AND adopted an AA baby too! Go figure!) from this past year in early August, AFS host moms camp out in Las Vegas in the fall (Hooray! Can’t wait to go back to Vegas and to meet these awesome ladies!), my dad’s 60th birthday coming up in September, starting my work as an AFS liaison this fall (I will be sponsoring girls from Italy and Turkey), and continuing my many writing projects. I recently wrote a guest mini-series for my friend Elizabeth’s adoption blog Adoptivity, I’ve been hired by my choir to write a regular column in the newsletter, and I am still busily busting out articles for Yahoo News as the occasion permits. I am really enjoying all of the writing—it’s given me a focus for my brain that doesn’t involve Oompah-Loompahs or giant purple dinosaurs. I’ve got a book club that I’ve been going to here in Fredericksburg and of course the NoVa one, so that keeps me busy. I took the summer off for the chorus, but will go back to it in October—I’m happy to say 3 choir members have let me know they miss me. Hooray! I’m loved and missed. :)

Mike and I have been busily tightening up our budgets some. The last couple months from March to June were a total drain on our finances, and so we’ve been taking little opportunities as they come to make some changes. We dropped a big chunk of our cable, saving us $300 per year. The young lady who cut our grass decided not to do it this year, so we spent $15 on parts, got our lawn mower repaired, and I am now mowing, saving us roughly $200 per year. I no longer have a cell phone, saving us $600 per year. We switched to a different trash service, saving us $120 per year. We bought an electric clipper so I can buzz Mike’s hair, saving us $150 per year. On their own, these things might not seem like a big deal, but add it up and it comes to a total savings per year of over $1300. We’ve also totally quit going out for meals unless there’s a really, really, really good reason (laziness is not a good reason), which is a huge savings.

I’ve also instituted “Not going anywhere one day a week” in which I am totally car-free. It’s been Sundays, although that will have to change because I will have choir practice on Sundays this fall, but one day per week, I flatly refuse to get in the car for any reason. It has been a success. We spend a good bit more family time together, I am forced to make good decisions about how to schedule my time during the week to accomplish our goal, and I really do feel my blood pressure going down as I stop running around so much. This past Saturday, I was at Giant and the car’s battery died. Getting stranded SUCKED, getting stranded without a phone SUCKED HARD, but we survived, fortunately we had a friend visiting who came and jumped the car for us, got a new battery, and all’s well. As a bonus: if that had happened a month ago, I’d have been raiding the savings account and panicking. Now I can afford to take it in stride a bit!

Well, ok, I’ll probably see you in a couple of months. I would like to think I’ll be able to blog from Arizona, but our professor said we should get some sleep before we come, which does not bode well! So if not, I’ll update with how it was. Wish me luck! TTFN!

Updates from Susan-Land

2011-05-19T11:05:00.001-07:00

It’s been a busy few weeks. It’s hard to believe we have less than 40 days now until Penny leaves us. There were times we never thought this time would come, and now here we are in many ways dreading the fact that she has to leave at all! It will be an interesting summer, though, and we have a lot planned, so I think we’ll have some fun.

The big news this past few weeks has been that we had to have our beloved little bunny, TomTom, put to sleep. He started acting a little punky and out of it and then just started smelling really bad, and finally had a hard time moving at all. I took him to the vet last week and she said that he was having kidney issues and they could try to nurse him through it, but there were no guarantees and it would be kinder just to let him go. For all the kidding around we’ve done in recent years about waiting for him to die so we could install bookshelves in his spot downstairs, it was incredibly sad and painful to bid him farewell. This picture was taken when he was about 4 months old, and he lived to be 6, so he had a good, long life. I know living in his pen in the basement wasn’t his favorite place to be, but we did the best we could by him, and I think as long as we gave him carrots and whatnot, he was happy.

I am busy now with two major goals, the first of which is finishing off everything I need to do in order to start school this summer. This includes completing a checklist of things they have on the school website for the summer course I’m taking, as well as the nuts and bolts, like applying for a loan, making travel arrangements, getting the text book, getting tested for immunity to measles, and making arrangements for where I’m going to stay. I’ve got an email address set up now for my school stuff, so I can say I’m official, and now that the bill is in, I guess I’m really going. The worst part of it has been dealing with my doctor’s office, trying to figure out about how I can get tested for a measles immunity. Despite my repeated phone calls, they haven’t called back, so finally I called the clinic in Central Park here in Fredericksburg and they can do the test and have the papers ready in 2 days. I should have gone there 3 weeks ago!

The other major thing is working on getting Leah potty trained. She has indicated a readiness and willingness for the task, as for the past couple of months, she’s gotten very upset when her diaper is wet or dirty, and tries to get it off. If she can’t, she screams and cries pitifully. We’ve been at it almost 2 weeks now, and she’s definitely getting the hang of it. She likes earning little rewards and she loves wearing underpants instead of a diaper. So I think we’re making good progress.

Last weekend, Paul Burrell, Princess Diana’s butler, came into Fredericksburg to help raise funds for the new children’s museum they are hoping to build here. Of course I jumped at the chance to go meet him and brought Penny along as her opportunity to meet a celebrity. We had a great time—he got right on the floor with Leah, and Penny was so happy that I talked her into going back and getting herself a book signed and asking him about the royal wedding.

Penny has developed an interest in the British Royal family thanks to my tutelage, so it was kind of special to share in that after we watched the Royal Wedding together and I taught her some tea sandwiches and scones to make English tea, which we did for both the Royal Wedding and for Mother’s Day.

Today we rolled down to Westmoreland Berry Patch to pick berries and play with goats. She LOVED it this year, as opposed to last year when she really wanted nothing to do with it. She sat in the mud happily mashing and eating berries and then we fed the goats and had lunch. They give you a handful of corn or a handful of goat feed for a quarter, and she was determined that the goat was not getting more than one niblet at a time, and even then he’d have to pry it from her fingers, but the goat was quite patient and happily ate whatever she was willing to give without biting.

I have been penpalling a lot lately, and have new penpals from England, Australia, New Zealand, Portugal, and Switzerland. It’s a lot of fun and very interesting, and helping me travel vicariously, since I’m not likely to go too many places between now and who knows when! One of my Australian penpals friended me on Facebook and it is hilarious to see her snow pictures while I’m gearing up to roast off a few pounds here with summer kicking off.

Otherwise, we’ve been sticking close to home. Gas prices being what they are, I’ve canceled our summer travel plans and am now making plans for things we can do locally. This past week I only used one tank of gas, which for me is astounding, since I was going through 2 a week. We are enjoying Toddlin’ Time and MOPS, and at the MOPS event on Sunday, they were talking to me about putting Leah in pre-school this fall, which I am still thinking about. I’ve been leaning away from doing it, but at the same time, it would give me a couple of days a week to get schoolwork done, as well as allowing her the chance to socialize and learn some things… So we’ll see. I would like to take her to the Richmond Zoo and Ginter Gardens this summer, and we’ll go up to DC to Mike’s new office and to meet his co-workers. My old office is having a party next week and I’m going to go to that. My book clubs are still going strong, and I’m enjoying them both. Zipping around a lot with Penny now that she’s gotten more involved in school and friends. She really enjoyed the prom last weekend, and this weekend is having Korean food with friends, volunteering at a local 5K, and wants to go see Pirates of the Caribbean. Monday night, Mike will be out visiting some friends from RI who are coming to town, so we girls are going to have a little girls’ night, and I know she also wants to go to Charlottesville again, as well as go berry picking. Last night was her last choir concert, tonight she has to go to an improv show for her school. So it’s a busy time for all of us!

This summer, I’m going to go enjoy my first concert at Celebrate Virginia Live, when Barenaked Ladies roll into town. I’m also hoping to get to see Hello Dolly over at Riverside. I’m really excited to go to Tucson, and also to swim, spend time with friends, and start planning my dad’s 60th in September.

That’s all for now! The fun never ends! :-D

Some Reading Updates

2011-05-18T20:44:00.001-07:00

I’m sure very few people, if any, care much that I blog any more, and fewer still probably care if I blog about what I’ve been reading, but I enjoy blogging, so I’m going to do it anyway.

I went over to the soon-to-be-defunct Joseph Beth the other night with my buddy Jacalyn, and we roamed around look at sale books. I had my iPod out and my PBS Wish List open, and that way I was able to try to find books I had been wanting.

I’ve ready one serious book and one silly book this week, and considering that only puts my total on the year up to 15, 2 books is a significant amount of reading for one week. That they were both excellent reads was even better.

One book I found at Joseph-Beth completely by accident is Bill Geerhart’s Little Billy’s Letters. Here’s the description from Amazon.com:

What do Tori Spelling, the Church of Scientology, and Donald Rumsfeld all have in common?: They -- and many others -- have answered letters from "Little Billy", a grown man with a cache of stamps and far too much time on his hands. Funny, touching, and delightfully quirky, Billy's letters cover a broad range of subject matter:

Operation Drop-Out: Considering dropping out of elementary school, Billy writes to serial killers and celebrities seeking their wise counsel.
Billy's Law: Which Supreme Court Justice prefers the Big Mac to the Whopper? Who is Janet Reno's favorite crime fighter? What does Robert Shapiro say is the best defense for being framed for murder? Billy finds out.
The Making of the Class President: Billy runs for class president and collects "endorsements" from Nancy Reagan, Dick Cheney, George HW Bush, Gerald Ford, Bob Dole, Ken Starr, and Colin Powell.
Choosing My Religion: Billy asks representatives from the Catholic, Presbyterian, Mormon, Raelian, Satanic, Scientologist, Hare Krishna and Unification Church (Moonies) what is "cool" or "easy" about their religion.

Presidents, Supreme Court Justices, Celebrities, Heads of Corporations, Serial Killers, Robot Makers, and the NesQuick Bunny have all replied to "Little Billy's" scrawled questions.

This book was absolutely hilarious, riveting, clever, and fascinating. I started reading it while standing at the humor shelf in the store, and couldn’t put it down. Jacalyn and I were dying laughing over the letter to and from Charles Manson (Jacalyn, if you’re reading, there’s a second letter from Manson that’s even crazier than the first one!), and I absolutely loved that so many of these people took the time to respond to these letters in so many different ways—some just sent a picture, some actually wrote whole letters, you name it, it was done. The letter from Mr. Rogers will make you cry, unless you have a heart of stone.

An added bonus is that this book counts towards the What's In a Name? reading challenge, as a book with a size in the title! Woo hoo!

The second book I read this week was Ann Patchett’s The Magician’s Assistant. I had previously read 2 books by Ann Patchett, The Patron Saint of Liars and Bel Canto, both of which I consumed and adored. I have had The Magician’s Assistant on the shelf for a while now, and I tell you why: it’s Ann’s books. I need to take serious breaks in between reading them. Whenever I think of my favorite authors, I never really remember Ann Patchett, but as soon as I read one of her books, I’m reminded again of how fantastic a writer she really is and I remind myself that I need to include her in my top 10 list of authors I love. Every book is a beautiful story, so densely packed with characters you love even if you hate them a little bit, a story line that literally has me biting off my nails even if it’s not a taut thriller, and I’m pleased to say The Magician’s Assistant was no different.

I’ve had this book so long, I honestly can’t remember where I got it. It strikes me that I got it from the library book sale, because I can sort of remember saying to myself, “Oh, Ann Patchett, I think I’ll pick this up.” This past week with all the nuttiness happening, I’ve been in the mood to just read an excellent story, and I had a feeling this book would deliver. And somehow, after putting TomTom to sleep last week (SOB!), seeing the rabbit on the front cover of this book was an absolute comfort to me.

The story revolves around Sabine, who has been magician Parsifal’s assistant for more than 20 years and wife for just a few years. When Parsifal dies suddenly and unexpectedly, Sabine’s attorney finds mention of a family in Parsifal’s will that Sabine never knew existed. She had lived with the assumption that Parsifal was an orphan with no relatives, but in fact, his mother, sisters, and nephews are alive and well in Nebraska. She chooses to meet them and learns much about the man she thought she knew, and about herself in the process.

The minute I dove into it, I knew I was in trouble. I did not put the book down much, I can honestly say. But Monday, as I got to the bombshell I never saw coming, I literally had to put the book down and walk away. Just reading the middle section of the book exhausted me. And yet, within hours, I was ordering Run off PaperBackSwap, and I’m hoping it comes soon.

Where Patchett shines in The Magician’s Assistant is in not bashing the idea of Sabine’s grief into your head. The story really is focused on Parsifal’s family, and on Sabine’s discovery of that family, on what she assumed and thought and what they assumed and thought, and how the truth was in that grey area in between. Exploring all that underbelly stuff could get complicated, but Patchett manages to never let it get messy. When I began weeping 100 pages before the book was done, I knew good and well I was in deep. Typically I can’t stand neat and tidy endings, but in this case, I was cheering for Sabine to make certain decisions, and while she did make them, we are left to make up our own mind about how those decisions will play out in the future.

I felt so deeply for Sabine and for Parsifal’s family, that to close the cover on this book was nearly devastating in itself. I’ll be adding Ann Patchett to my “must read” lists in the future, and while I may take another lengthy break before investing in her again, I am very pleased to see that she’ll be appearing in DC on June 8th and have every intention of going to meet her and get some books signed… That is my neat and tidy little ending, and one I’m very excited about!

I gave Little Billy’s Letters 4 stars on GoodReads and The Magician’s Assistant 5 stars. I highly recommend both of them!

A Taste Test

2011-04-30T12:54:00.001-07:00

I’ve recently become addicted to a podcast for the first time. Mike and Tom Eat Snacks is a podcast by Tom Cavanagh and Michael Ian Black, formerly of Ed fame, which was one of my favorite TV shows back in the day. They’ve both gone on to do other things, but recently re-united to start doing this podcast in which they taste various snacks and discuss them, usually while touching on lots of other pop culture topics. It’s hilarious and fun, and makes me think about my snack options!

We just got back from nearly a week in New England and while I was taking Penny grocery shopping to prepare some Thai food for Mike’s family, Mike asked me to please pick him up some Yodels. Mike is a big fan of Drake’s Cakes and Yodels are his top pick. I got two boxes, and then noted that Drakes has been taken over by Hostess. I thus made the pronouncement that Yodels and HoHo’s are the same thing and from now on, he could just eat a Ho Ho. I was informed that a Ho Ho and a Yodel are two totally different animals and it was an insult to the Yodel-eating universe to suggest that one could be substituted for the other.

I then suggested that perhaps a Swiss Roll by Little Debbie was a good alternative, and again was rebuffed. So I posited that if he was so sure of himself, we’d just set up a blind taste test and if he could choose the difference and correctly identify the Yodel, I would, in essence, shut up.

Last night, I went to the grocery store and picked up Ho Ho’s and Swiss Rolls. The stage thus set, we decided to set some ground rules. Mike said he’d be able to tell just by holding the cakes in his hand which was which. Consequently, until the test was over, I made him eat with a spoon. I couldn’t do much about smell, which he also said would be a clear indication. So I set up the test and he sampled all three.

He correctly identified one out of three cakes, but the one he correctly identified was indeed the Yodel. He confused the HoHo and the Swiss roll. Thus mollified, Penny and I had to jump in on “the snack game” as Mike and Tom call it and sample the cakes for ourselves.

Having now sampled all three cakes at the same time, I can confirm that they all do have distinct tastes. Here are our findings:

(From left to right: Swiss Roll, Ho Ho, Yodel)

1. The Ho Ho was consistently all three of our least favorite cake. Mike said it was plastic tasting, and I found the cake to be quite dry. We all agreed it had the most frosting on the inside and the smell was the chocolatiest of all the cakes.

2. The Yodel was Mike’s favorite and Penny and I were not able to say we liked it more or less than the Swiss Roll. It had much more cake and much less frosting which actually fooled Mike into thinking it had chocolate cream—you really couldn’t taste the cream very much at all. It also had the darkest chocolate coating on the outside.

3. The Swiss Roll is the one I would lean towards as my favorite. While it seemed to have the least chocolate on the outside, it was the easiest one to taste the various components of the snack (frosting, cake, coating). The chocolate was quite pale on the outside. The Swiss Roll was also the sweetest.

(The all-important sniff test)

Interestingly, despite the Swiss Roll tasting the sweetest, it contains fewer grams of sugar than the Yodel. The HoHo had the least sugar of all the cakes we sampled.

It was a lot of fun and we had a lot of laughs while we sampled the cakes. I doubt this is something we will do any more of, but I think it’d be pretty cool if MATES did something similar—compared the offerings of several different companies’ version of the same snack. And if they need a box of HoHo’s, they just have to ask.

Can It Be True? My Baby’s Two!

2011-04-08T11:25:00.001-07:00

She brings me more joy than I ever imagined possible. I love you, my darling girl.

Spring 2011

2011-03-31T11:31:00.001-07:00

Life’s a beach for me and my girls…

Can I Be Famous?

2011-03-22T19:52:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago, I got an email from Yahoo about their new Contributor program. This allows you to sign up to write selected articles for them about various news events. I think I was sent the notice because I am a fan of their Royal Wedding updates on Facebook.

Anyway, I clicked on over and signed up and listed the Royal Wedding as an interest of mine and a week or so ago, I was sent an alert that they were looking for “unique” articles about some aspect of the wedding. I chose to write about the Welsh island where William and Kate are going to live after the wedding.

Well, guess what!? Today I was told THEY BOUGHT IT! And PUBLISHED IT!! I am officially a published author. Check me out HERE!!!!! YAHOO! Literally :) And I don’t know who all is sharing it, but 25 people have shared it on Facebook at last count, and 2 have shared it on Twitter. That’s awesome. I get performance pay as more people click on it, in addition to the base rate I was paid for the story.

So today I was offered another crack at it, and I signed up again to do another piece on the wedding. Whereas before I was really struggling to come up with what to write about that hadn’t been covered before, this time I had 3 or 4 ideas and had to really sit and consider them. It ultimately came down to what I could most easily find on the internet. It’s taken me a couple of hours, but I just submitted my second piece and I hope it’s also accepted. We’ll see!

So yeah, you can tell everyone you know the great Kate Kosior, journalist and writer :-D

The Worst Thing About Lent…

2011-03-19T16:56:00.001-07:00

The worst thing about giving up Facebook for Lent is that I feel cut off from all my dear friends and my wonderful support system. I’ve been depressed about it, really, over the last couple of days. It’s been a rough week, for a variety of reasons, and a lot has been on my mind. Ordinarily, I’d just pop up a quick status update and get a million responses. Now, I either need to sit down and write out an email, which by the time I get done writing and reading it makes me a little sick of my own neediness and I don’t send them, or else just kinda hang around and ponder what the heck my friends and I ever did before Facebook!

I remember emails. Long emails, the kind that read like letters or books. Responding after each paragraph, avidly reading through the original letters and the responses and adding more and more onto each email. I remember tossing up a blog post and getting 3 or 4 responses immediately, going to other people’s blogs and posting. Now it’s more of a personal pursuit that I’m doing to clear my own thoughts.

I am really sad this weekend about the fact that Leah will most likely be sibling-less. My wonderful neighbor down the street gave birth to her second son this past week, and it made me realize that Leah will be alone when we are gone. Despite many arguments and disputes with my own sister, there really is nothing like a sibling to share your life with. I think ahead to when Mike and I are old and Leah will have no one to shoulder the burden with. When we are gone, she will be alone. It depresses the hell out of me. But selfishly, I suppose, I also do not especially want to have another baby come into our lives. So I guess I’m just one big paradox!!!

Today, I slept until almost 1:00, despite having someplace to go at 8:30 this morning. This past week has just been awful, getting up every morning between 4:00 and 4:45 (my internal clock started screaming “you have to leave soon!” at 4:00 towards the end of the week), not getting back to sleep till 7, not hearing Leah if she was yelling to get up, waking up at 9 or 9:30 and then running around because we were chronically late…

Last night was busy. Leah got a bit of a late nap in, as we went to the park after Toddlin’ Time, and then by the time she fell asleep, Penny got home and I asked her to pack so we could leave by 3:30 to meet Mike up in Alexandria. We were getting our taxes done, a task which I know is tedious but necessary. Penny and Leah were climbing the walls in H&R Block, and finally went for a walk at the pet shop next door. We had a nice dinner at the Olive Garden and then dropped Penny off at Melissa’s for the night so she could get a ride into Fairfax today for her TOEFL. She has spent the remainder of the day with Judy and family and I am leaving sometime soon to go pick her up.

After sleeping half the day away, we went to lunch, where I was able to solicit another donation on the choir’s behalf (hooray, me!) and then got Leah home for a nap. I spent that quiet time working on an article for Yahoo Contributors, for which I signed up in the hopes of getting some writing experience, and also some solicitation letters for the choir. We are looking for some corporate sponsors, and I figured I’d take a shot at some local companies where we have spent some serious cash. Will it bear fruit? I don’t know! But I had to try.

Once Leah woke up, we decided to go play outside and eventually decided she’d have more fun at the park, so we had a small family picnic at Duff Green park. I just got Leah to bed, put away the second load of dishes, am now here, bitching to the universe. The silence in the house without Penny here is absolutely deafening. There’s a definite sense of something missing, even when she’s up in her room studying at least we know she’s there. So I feel pretty confident that things will seem seriously out of whack when she leaves for good.

Tomorrow, Penny will be going out with her liaison from AFS to the Melting Pot. I hope she enjoys the experience there as much as I do when I go. We have an extended choir rehearsal tomorrow night and then next week will be a short week as on Friday we have our annual physicals and then leave for Savannah. I need to arrange for someone to come feed the rabbit while we are gone. Savannah should be a fun, although quick, trip. Penny wants to climb the Tybee Island lighthouse, which I’m actually pretty excited about, and I’m excited about my first trip to Tybee Island period. What else we will do, I’m not sure, but I know the Wellses will treat us to a good time. When we get back, it’ll be CHERRY BLOSSOM TIME! and I’ll definitely be taking a day to go to DC. And then, shockingly, it’ll be April, and my baby will be turning 2… The first quarter of the year gone. How is it possible?

So c’mon April 24!!!! I want to see some Facebook!!!! I miss everyone :-D For anyone who might be reading and want some Leah love, here’s the best I can do. She’s been too busy to pose for pictures lately, so here’s a profile of her, showing her great love of Greek yogurt.

One of Them Thar Days…or Weekends!

2011-03-14T11:29:00.001-07:00

It’s Monday and I’m exhausted. This time change thing SUCKS. Over the weekend, Penny was consumed by the events in Japan, quite possibly the first time she’s been engaged in the news. We had to keep her busy, or she’d have spent her every waking minute in front of CNN, which is not a good or healthy thing. So instead of sitting around, making her study for the TOEFL, which is next week and which I predict she will not do well on, we kept her pretty busy. She did finish a research paper she had due, and we made a cake, went to Chuck E. Cheese, did yardwork, watched movies, went to lunch, and had choir practice.

The time change has thrown all of us off. I really am missing that hour. This week, Mike’s carpool driver is in Florida. His back up carpool person called last night to say her dad is in ICU and she won’t be going to work this week. So I had to get up at 4:45 this morning to drive to the train station. When I got back, it was time for Penny to get up, and she is LOUD in the mornings. I didn’t get back to sleep till nearly 7:00. I awoke from a haze at 9:30—no idea if Leah was doing anything at all this morning while I was sleeping!—and realized I was supposed to drop Leah at Wiggle Worms so I could teach my friend Sherry to do video editing on Windows Movie Maker. I hurriedly got up and got my sunshine girl moving, then checked the caller ID. My neighbor had called. My heart temporarily stopped.

My neighbor, Lisa, is heavily pregnant and ready to pop. I am her night time back up person, so that if she goes into labor overnight, she can call us and leave her older son here until her mom can get here. So last night, I didn’t take the phone to bed with me, and of course, there was a call from her on the caller ID.

Mercifully, or so for a moment I thought, she called this morning. And then I remembered it was because I was supposed to babysit Daniel this morning while she went to her final doctor’s appointment!

I had already told Sherry I might not be here at 10:30 on the dot like we’d planned, so I had to quickly get in touch with her and say that not only would there not be no toddlers running around, there’d be two toddlers running around. So she and I decided to reschedule. Lisa arrived with Daniel right on time, while I was on the phone with my dad, of course, so I got them in and got Daniel and Leah settled while Lisa took off. My goal for the morning was to keep Leah and Daniel as physically active and busy as possible, so we went out in the backyard and played “Let’s add sticks to the stick pile!” and “Let’s kick balls into the ever moving soccer goal!” and “Let’s run up and down the driveway with the toy car!” and “Let’s run up and down the alphabet singing loudly!” It worked. Leah is out cold, and I suspect Daniel was going to have a nice nap, since he looked pretty out of it when his mom picked him up.

So this afternoon I need to prepare some food for my book club girls, the number of which is rapidly dwindling, and then make dinner for my family, pick up Mike, and go to my book club meeting.

What else have we been up to? Let’s see. My choir is having it’s annual gala fundraiser. We’ve all been tasked with gathering items for the silent auction. I am not the fundraising type, and I hate asking for donations, so I decided to devise a little email that I thought I would send out to the people I know here in town. It turns out that I know quite a lot of people who own or manage quite a few businesses in town. So I sent out about 20 emails and I got 15 responses. Then I started asking people about donating their hobbies, and I got several responses for that (computer repairs, metal detecting, etc). Now I’m up to emailing random businesses with whom I have zero affiliation and asking them for donations. It’s turned out that I’m quite good at this stuff. I’ve gotten close to 25 donations thus far. If you’re out there and reading this and would like to donate something to the SRCS silent auction, please leave me a comment or drop me an email and I’ll get in touch! All donations are tax deductible!!! And if you want to buy a ticket and come hear me sing, then please do so! Your ticket is $85 and tax deductible except for the cost of your dinner!

This weekend I did a lot of yardwork, finishing up trimming and pruning the trees in the backyard. They were in pretty rough shape, totally overgrown, and some seemed to be on the verge of death. I started 2 weeks ago with hand trimmers, which did a good job, but Saturday I bought a chainsaw (which of course didn’t come with any bar and chain oil and the goons at Home Depot didn’t tell me I needed any, so I got home and immediately had to go back out to another hardware store and get the oil) and set to work. Unfortunately, due to my injury last summer, I don’t have the arm strength I had in my left arm, so it was a bit of a challenge.

So I chainsaw massacre the living daylights out of the first 7 bushes, which I could reach and then Mike and I devise a plan to snake the (of course too shot) extension cord through the windows into his office so it’ll be long enough, and it’s sort of long enough, but not really, but I decided to take my chances. So I get to one really good sized log I’m ready to take out and the saw gets halfway through it and the chain comes flying off the cutting bar. So I go inside and ask Mike to send a message to our neighbor, Aaron, who comes over to fix the chainsaw, only he didn’t tighten it enough and I get through 2 more branches and the chain flies off again. So I’m thinking, “@#)($*_!” and go back inside and tell Mike I’m done!

So Mike texts Aaron again and tells him that I am in the backyard taking a break, so I leave the comfort of my sofa and head outside only to see our other neighbor, Jett, who tells me how great everything looks and he can’t believe I’ve been chainsawing the things myself! While he and I are chatting, Aaron comes back. Now, I immediately sense trouble. Men + power tools + perceived “helpless female” + trees = woodchips a flying! And sure enough, they perceive that despite the fact that I managed to mow through 8 trees without them that because the chain has now come off twice, I am clearly incapable of sawing down my own trees. So I now point to what I want gone, and Aaron does the cutting. I come to find out that he has been invited to a dinner party at his wife’s boss’s house, and he does not want to go. When Jett catches wind of this, he decides that I have clearly missed branches that MUST come down on the other 8 trees, and the two of them plunge back and forth along the row of hedges cutting the heck out of my shrubs and talking like little old men about the quality of the chainsaw I bought, what’s going on with whom in the neighborhood, etc. They swear they are coming back with a trailer to haul all the debris. I’m hopeful!

I’ve managed to read 3 books in the past week since giving up Facebook for Lent on Wednesday, which is a true testament to what a timesuck Facebook really is. I loved Sarah’s Key and The Hunger Games, and also read Princess Sultana’s Circle, which was merely ok. I’m hoping that since at least half of us have now read Sarah’s Key, my Fredericksburg book club will get to meet again soon. I find myself unexpectedly looking forward to it. So that’s a good sign, right?

One of the other host moms has also turned me on to 2 new websites: PostCrossing.com and InterPals.net Postcrossing allows you to ask for someone’s address and you send them a postcard. Once you have sent and received a postcard, your name enters the system and you start to receive postcards as well. I’ve sent out 7 so far, 3 of which are confirmed to have arrived. Hopefully I’ll get one one of these days. InterPals lets you search people’s profiles to find yourself penpals. I used to be an avid penpal person, had dozens from all over the world (My parents probably pulled their hair out with my postage costs!). I have thought on and off about doing it again over the years, but I didn’t really think anyone did letters any more. So I was excited to hear about this site and signed on. I’ve found 7 or 8 new penpals and we’ll see how it goes. I’ve got one email pal and the rest are letter writing pals. I searched primarily in the UK and Australia, getting one in Australia and most of the rest from England, although I’m excited to say that I’ve also gotten one from Germany, which I always had very good luck with in the past as a teenager. My German penpals were devoted writers. So we’ll see how that goes!

This week will be busy. As I said, today is book club. We’ll be at Toddlin’ Time tomorrow, and going to visit Lisa in the hospital towards the end of the week. Sherry and I are attempting to reschedule our tutoring session. I’ve got to get around to several places to pick up gift certificates. God willing the weather stays nice and Leah and I can get to the park this week. We’re getting our taxes done on Friday, and I am dropping Penny off with Melissa so she can take her to her TOEFL exam on Saturday while I am at the Fredericksburg Women’s Forum. Then it’s on back to choir practice on Sunday and the week starts all over again.

But first, I think a nap is in order! Have a great week everyone!

So Much Nothing

2011-03-06T21:08:00.001-08:00

I haven’t blogged about anything in several weeks, despite my firm declarations that I would blog more this year. So much has happened and yet nothing really has happened at all. I have been trying hard to keep up with our AFS blog, since a lot of other host parent bloggers fell off that wagon pretty hard, and our blog is all over the AFS website.

The other night I was mentally composing a blog post in my head and it was BRILLIANT, I tell you. BRILLIANT. I was listening to Sarah Bareilles’s King of Anything on the radio and singing along. That song has become a personal anthem of sorts. There are so many great parts in it, but here are some that really resonate with me:

You’re so busy making masks with my name on them in all caps, you’ve got the talking down, just not the listening…

You sound so innocent, all full of good intent, swear you know best. But you expect me to jump up on board with you and ride off into your delusional sunset…

Now I have forgotten much of my brilliant post, but I’ll try to formulate below…

February was a month when a lot of people disappeared from my life. I have done a lot of soul searching in the past 18 months or so, and I’ve discovered that if I had one complaint about myself, it’s that I allow people to treat me as a disposable commodity, a convenience to pick up and put down at will.

There is a part of me that has always felt “second best” and been eager to accept any mere crumbs that have fallen my way. Everybody’s pal, but nobody’s best friend (don’t get nervous, Lesley! :-D). In one of my favorite movies, The Holiday, Arthur tells Iris she’s never the leading lady, only the best friend, and Iris realizes she should be the leading lady in her own life. That part has always felt to me like the true soul of that film.

Until a year and a half ago, that was enough for me, or at least, I was willing to put up with it, feeling I deserved no better. I thought that if I disagreed with my family or with my friends, it made me a bad friend, a bad daughter, a bad sister, a bad wife, a bad mother. I would go so far as not to express an opinion about anything—books, movies, music—until I had a gauge of everyone else’s opinion first and if I disagreed, I would just nod rather non-committally and refrain from expressing an opposing view. I think during the first 5 years my book club was in existence, I may have opened my mouth just a few times to express anything. I was (and to an extent, still am) terrified of saying “the wrong thing”.

So many things I’d say if only I were able, but I just keep quiet and count the cars that pass by…

All my life I’ve tried to make everybody happy while I’d just hurt and hide, waiting for someone to tell me it’s my turn to decide.

Through a lot of help and especially recently talking with a good friend of mine who had similar patterns of behavior and thinking, I’ve come to realize that the worst thing that can happen is that you lose people who can’t accept that you are changing. That you are demanding just a little bit of respect. (Remember Dianne Wiesst in Parenthood? “Not a lot, just a little!” I’m full of pop cultural references today!) That you expect honesty in your relationships. One thing I can really and truly say is that I am sick to death of being lied to. And I do believe that dishonesty is a major cause of many relationship problems that most of us have.

Regardless, I am not entirely innocent either and I definitely am willing to own up to my mistakes, and I have made more than a few. So to those of you who have been offended by something I said or did, I am truly sorry.

One interesting aspect of having Penny here is that I do feel it is more incumbent on me to be a role model. I make no show of hiding how I feel about many of Penny’s friends, who are obnoxious and rude little shits. :-D Since the day she has arrived here, they’ve sent her nasty messages via Facebook and the things that she’s told me about what they say to her and how they treat her when she is in their presence is literally shocking. And I suggested to her, “You are so desperate not to be lonely that you will tolerate any abuse at all just to have someone to talk to.” And she agreed with me, which is sad. But I have also talked with her about my own relationship issues as they’ve come up while she’s here and let her take the lead in deciding what should be done about them. Some decisions she’s made wouldn’t have been done the way I think I would have done them, and she’s found it very interesting and I think a learning experience to see what happens in relationships and that you can survive if people you are related to or people you think are your friends bow out. I have tried to explain to her that you can say good bye without feeling resentful.

One thing we’ve talked extensively about is how each of us has our own perspective on things. One of the things we’ve talked about with regards to friends is how whether or not I think something is true, my friend views it as true and I have to at the very least attempt to respond to their reality. For instance, someone recently remarked that she wants to be friends with Penny but that Penny never talks to anyone. Penny disagreed totally with that statement. I explained to her that whether she agreed or disagreed, that was how other people saw her was as a person who didn’t want to talk to anyone. So she renewed her efforts and now has been making good progress in the past week or two at talking with people and seeing them respond to her as a result. (Of course, she is pissed it is now March and she is seeing results, but it’s taken till March till she’s made this type of effort!)

So, yadda yadda yadda, just some things that we’ve been talking about, things I’ve been thinking about and discussing with friends. In light of this, I recently cleared out my friends’ list on Facebook. I cleared off nearly 100 people. There are more that I certainly could clear off, and I may. Every couple of days I go back through the list and chuck off a couple more that I never hear from, that I was just being nosy about, people who weren’t especially nice to me “then” and who I really don’t care about hearing from now. In preparation for Lent, I’ve been thinking about last year’s experiment in giving up Facebook, and I’m going to do it again. During that time, I’ll make a list of the people whose updates I miss most and delete pretty much everyone else…

In other news…

Leah’s 2nd birthday is planned. I was going to have it at Toddlin’ Time since that is her favorite place on earth. Then when I went to reserve it, I came to find out they already had a party booked on that date, so I had to look elsewhere. I really didn’t want to clean the house and go to the expense, and frankly after looking at it, the price to have a party elsewhere is cheaper than the expense and trouble I go to having a party at home. So I booked her party at Wiggle Worms and then found out that the party at Toddlin’ Time is for one of her friends at TT, and we are invited to that party. That mom had her invitations professionally printed and the whole 9 yards, and since I hadn’t, I volunteered to move Leah’s party, which I was able to do. My dad is going to make it down since I’ve moved it, which is even more exciting! He is also going to come down on April 20th and give us a night off for our wedding anniversary. Woo hoo!

Choir rehearsals have started up again. I am enjoying it. Our theme for this year’s gala is “Going on a Sea Cruise” and we are doing all songs about the sea, so it’s right up my alley. I have been busy helping with the silent auction by soliciting donations and I’m happy to say I’ve gotten some pretty awesome ones, so that’s cool. I have made a lot of connections in the past 2 years of being here in the community full time, so it’s paying off for the choral society anyway! If anyone has eighty five dollars they don’t know what to do with, feel free to come on out on April 17th at UMW and listen to us. Tonight we started learning choreography and stuff, so it’s going to be a lot of fun!

Well, I guess I should go to bed. I’m tired and I’m babysitting my neighbor’s son tomorrow. There’s more stuff going on, like my great yard clean up this year, but that’ll have to wait for another post!

Good night, everyone!

A Cool Experience

2011-02-15T20:27:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I took my girls to Walmart to do a little Valentine’s shopping. Leah got tired of the shopping real quick, so I took her to look at the fish, which she loves! While we were looking at the fish swimming around in the tanks, an employee came over and pointed at Leah, made a questioning face at me, and kind of grunted. I guess I kind of looked at him funny because he quickly whipped out a notepad and wrote down, “I am deaf”.

Well, over the years I’ve taken several sign language classes, and while I’d still call myself an extreme beginner, I quickly said, “OH!” and then made the sign for “my daughter”. This guy’s jaw dropped and he quickly asked me, “You know how to sign?” I signed “Only a little!” and it was hard for him to interpret what I thought I was saying because I was holding Leah in one arm and trying to sign with both hands. He gave me his notepad and I wrote down, “I only know a little” but he wrote, “I don’t care! Very good!”

I put Leah down and signed “She loves the fish!” He decided to try to sell me an aquarium so I signed “Too much work!” and he taught me the signs for “It gets dirty fast”.

What followed was a 10 minute conversation in broken sign language, garbled speech, and written correspondence. We signed about how he likes working at Walmart, do people talk to him, my blind husband and his fear of becoming blind, him wearing hearing aids or not, my family, the war in Egypt (that one took place on his notepad!), and so forth.

He thanked me for talking when another customer came over and I promised that if I saw him again, I would say hello. I wished Penny had been there to experience sign language, as she has adjusted so well to having a blind “parent” and I think it would be interesting for her to witness a conversation in sign. But she was buying me a big box of Lindt truffles, so I can’t complain.

Anyway, I just felt really happy that I was able to effectively communicate in sign language even to a basic extent and it was pretty cool! The guy was so encouraging and even taught me some new stuff. Happily, my brain has not completely turned to mush these past 22 months! hehe

Percy Jackson

2011-02-09T11:14:00.001-08:00

I have completed my first book challenge read, The Titan’s Curse, which is the third book in Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series for kids.

I started reading the first Percy Jackson book last summer, at the behest of my father, who first introduced me to Harry Potter, so I thought I’d take a chance on him and let him lead me to the Jackson books.

I read the first one and thought it was cute, although I didn’t LOVE it like I did Harry Potter. But I read the second one, and somehow that lead me to picking up the third one on a recent trip to Walmart.

Now, I don’t like the winter days that are gray and dreary and depressing, and we’ve had a string of those lately. And by mid-January, I was pretty much pissed off at everyone and everything in my life. So I started reading The Titan’s Curse because I wanted to have a book in which a lot of stuff got blown up. And I was not disappointed.

In The Titan’s Curse, Percy is now 14 and is summoned to help rescue some half bloods at a school in Maine. Artemis and her crew of huntresses arrive to help and Annabeth disappears. While a fatal quest is predicted by the Oracle and in which Percy is not invited to participate, Percy goes off in search of his friend anyway and helps the adventurers fulfill their quest.

I think if I knew more about Greek mythology, I would probably get more out of all the actual mythology stuff, but I really enjoy these books regardless. They are fun, light, and easy to read. Percy is brave to the point of stupidity. Grover is a sweet and loveable character who I always cheer for. And it’s fun that in this book, they went to Washington DC.

I gave this book 3 stars on Goodreads, meaning I liked it. These aren’t the kind of books you absolutely LOVE, but they’re a great deal of fun regardless. I chose it as my book with evil in the title for the What's In a Name challenge, as a “Curse” is pretty evil. I like to pace myself and read one of these Percy Jackson books about every 4 or 5 months, so I will probably read one again towards the end of spring or beginning of summer. If you haven’t read Percy Jackson, I suggest giving him a try sometime! Especially if you like to see things crushed or blown up by the Gods of the Universe.

First Book Reviews of the Year

2011-01-10T10:59:00.001-08:00

I am going to attempt to review most of the books I read this year. So far, I’ve read 2, both of which I got at the library. The first is The Mighty Queens of Freeville by Amy Dickinson. This was a book club book and while I was at the library picking it up, they had Alan Brennert’s Honolulu on display at the circulation desk, so I snatched that one up too.

Amy Dickinson is best known for writing the Ask Amy column that took over when Ann Landers died. She also is a commentator on NPR. Her book was supposed to be about the town of Freeville NY and the women there who raised her and supported her and her daughter when Amy’s marriage to her husband (CBS reporter Anthony Mason) fell apart.

That is a book I would have loved to read. Instead, while interesting enough and a good enough read, the book is about her coping with the divorce while making occasional trips back to her hometown. The book is wildly out of sequence, as we discussed in book club (in one chapter, her cat Pumpkin dies, in the next chapter, Pumpkin is alive and well). Dickinson herself is likeable, and I found myself cheering for her successes and marveling at how she got through her low points, but in fact, the part I liked most was probably the part she expected her readers to like the least: the part in which she encounters her wayward dad, Buck, and goes on an adventure in the mud with him. Buck abandoned Amy’s mother when the children were young, and has infrequent contact with his children thereafter. Amy’s marriage suffers similarly in that her husband is a globetrotting reporter who is frequently absent. (Although he turns out to be a good dad to young Emily despite his long travels around the world.) Still, having grown up in the North Country, to which Amy alludes, I have known many such “Bucks” in my life, and they really are the kind of colorful characters that Amy may have inadvertently portrayed her father as, and they can be lovable in their own way. But of course, I say that without Buck being my dad.

In the end, Amy packages everything with a nice neat bow, meeting a new love interest and scoring Ask Amy while Emily happily goes off to college. Life is messy and a “happily ever after” ending to a memoir is rarely satisfying, as is true in this case. Amy’s story has yet to be written, as has mine, and if I finished writing my memoirs with moving to Virginia, or adopting my daughter, or conquering even some of my personal demons, I would leave out some of the best parts and lead my readers to conclude that life can be tidily summed up in an endpoint, even if it goes on.

That being said, I gave Mighty Queens 3 stars on Goodreads. Worth a shot if you need a quick book to pass the time. The girls in my book club all seemed to feel about the same about it. Thanks for the pick, Lauren!

Now, if you have been reading my book reviews or my blogs for a while, you will know that last year I was forced to read Molokai for my book club. This Alan Brennert book was a book I was convinced that I would hate, as a) my best friend Lesley LOVED it and b) I have no interest in the topics of leprosy or Pacific Island type stuff. Strangely though, I was totally drawn into the story of Rachel and her life in a leper colony and can say without hesitation that it was one of the best books I read last year.

During the book club discussion, it came out that Brennert had written another book called Honolulu and some of the girls wondered if it would be as good. I mentally resolved that I would not read it, because it is about a young woman from Korea moving to Hawaii as a picture bride and again, no interest in Pacific Island stories and even less in stories about Asia. (Sorry, but there it is!)

However, when I went to pick up Mighty Queens from the library, there was Honolulu, almost mocking me, from a perch on the circulation desk. Impulsively, I grabbed it and when I finished my first book, I started in on Honolulu. And I found it as compulsively readable as Molokai.

Honolulu is a story about Regret, a young picture bride from Korea. Stifling in her father’s home, she consults a matchmaker and is soon betrothed to a Mr. Noh in Hawaii, who presents himself as a wealthy plantation worker in the Hawaiian islands, painted by Koreans as being paved with golden streets and rife with opportunity. Regret forces her father’s hand to allow her to go to Hawaii for the marriage, and soon discovers not the wealthy and kind man who will allow her to be education, but a gambling alcoholic who beats her and kills their unborn child. Regret flees from Mr. Noh’s shack, renames herself Jin (Korean for “gem”), and embarks on carving out a new life for herself in the Hawaiian capital city.

The story is fairly intricate, and you easily find yourself immersed in the story of Jin’s life in Hawaii only to be reminded of the “little sister” she left behind (a 5 year old girl betrothed to Jin’s brother), only to be brought back to Mr. Noh only to go back to Jin’s friends and fellow picture brides and their families. Each and every story line remains compelling till the end of the book when Brennert gets bogged down in some actual Hawaiian history, which he clearly wanted to include in the book, but which overtook the driving story line, that being the tale of The Massie Affair. To be honest, while I am typically a true crime buff, I really just wanted to get back to Regret/Jin’s story and so I skimmed much of the 20 or so pages devoted to this whole thing so I could get back to what I considered the real meat and potatoes of the book.

I laughed and cried and cheered and hoped for Regret and her friends and their stories. I loved how the book concluded, and how the characters struggled with issues bigger than themselves and lived very human lives at the same time. Alan Brennert is fast rising to the top of my “must read authors” list. I gave the book 4 stars on GoodReads just because it did get off track with the Massie stuff, otherwise it would have gotten 5. Check this one out today!

My One and Only Book Challenge this Year

2011-01-04T09:59:00.000-08:00

Last year, I signed up for 4 book challenges and managed to complete 3 of them. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, my favorite one was the What's In a Name challenge, and this year I am only signing up for that one. I didn't like feeling the pressure of having to try and cram in the challenge reading. Still, I'm proud I completed 3 of them anyway!

The categories this year are pretty cool too!

Between January 1 and December 31, 2011, read one book in each of the following categories:

1. A book with a number in the title
2. A book with jewelry or a gem in the title
3. A book with a size in the title
4. A book with travel or movement in the title
5. A book with evil in the title
6. A book with a life stage in the title

I'm not even going to speculate what books I might read to fill these in, as most of the books I thought I'd read starting out last year didn't make the cut in the end. Still, it should be fun reading!

If you want to sign up, go to http://whatsinaname4.blogspot.com/search/label/Sign-Up.

Happy reading!

Old Year, New Year

2011-01-03T09:25:00.001-08:00

Well, the holidays have come and more or less gone. This weekend we will have our big Three Kings dinner and then it will be official. I’m glad to be cleaning up the house a bit here and there, and glad that I’ve scheduled Leah to go to Melissa’s the weekend after 3 Kings :)

We had a great Christmas and a lot that we did this year, like usual. The highlights were of course ICE and the Ginter Gardens. Christmas Day was special in that I got to see my niece, whom I adore.

I enjoyed shopping this year. I read an article about why Christmas spending was up this year when the past few years have been dismal, sales figure wise. It seems that everyone was feeling the way I did this year: “Screw it. I’m sick of being frugal.” That’s the truth. This year, I was sick of worrying about it. I just started shopping in November and quit about 3 days before Christmas. Yes, we went way overboard, but I am happy to report that both girls loved everything they got and Leah is finally happy to find things to do all over the house. She loves her kitchen, her car, and her ball pit. She loves her shopping cart, her little book with attached piano, and her “laptop”. Penny is rarely seen without the earbuds to her iPod firmly in place (yes, it’s annoying, we no longer have conversations in the car, but the fact is, I did this as a teen with my walkman, so the heck with it!). When I can’t find her, odds are good she’s tucked up somewhere with her DSi or challenging me to a quick round of MarioKart, and I’m happy to say that we can now take pictures reliably with her new camera. We also don’t see her wacky t-shirts with crazy Engrish on them from Thailand any more. She got more clothes than anyone could imagine! :)

We spent New Year’s quietly alone. When the clock struck 12, we heard the fireworks from Old Town and ran outside to discover our neighbors somewhere behind us banging on pots and pans and hooting and hollering. In the spirit suddenly, I shouted “Happy New Year!” in the general direction of the bushes, and heard lots of “Happy new Year!”s shouted in return. We spent the rest of the weekend laying in groceries for the week and watching a lot of reality TV. We got totally wrapped up in Sister Wives, which caused Penny to declare that there are a lot of strange people in this country (no kidding!). She fell madly in love with David Tutera and My Fair Wedding and we discussed the pros and cons of my love affair with Billy the Exterminator.

We spent a good bit of time looking at colleges for Penny too. She has decided that she really would like to attend college in the US if possible. We discussed her career goals and we have finally settled on the fact that she would like to become a lawyer. For some reason, she has her heart set on going to Harvard, and she has seen for herself that extra-curricular activities will factor into whether or not she gets into college in the US. She is going into school today with a renewed enthusiasm for joining some clubs and some community organizations as well. We also discussed the possibility that if she didn’t get into Harvard, she needed some back up schools, so she is going to look at Boston University, University of Richmond, and Bryant University (where the Chief went—as much as I influence her on her personal matters, he is a big influence on her professionally speaking). We will be going up to New England in April and she will be able to take a look at the schools then. Hopefully this will give her a better idea of whether she actually wants to go there and she can also start taking the exams she needs to take. (Notably the TOEFL and SAT’s, fun!) We talked yesterday about her friends’ plans. It seems that most of her friends are graduating but have no entry into college, so she feels that they will probably be sitting around or going on a year abroad or something. She was somewhat disappointed that most of them hadn’t learned a foreign language enough to consider going abroad to go to college. Her mindset has truly changed in the 4 months that she has been here, and she has come to see the world as a place of possibility, not one where she is trapped into a certain way of doing things. I am proud of this change in her from the girl she was in August.

We have made some changes already in the New Year. The bedtime thing has been hard, but I’ve been doing it, and the change in my overall attitude and disposition is stunning. I have much more patience and energy. It means I get a lot less time to spend by myself, as I used to “outwait” everyone else to get a couple of hours of peace and quiet, but now I just snuggle up with the mister and sleep overtakes me very quickly. It has also forced me in just a couple of short days to really prioritize what I want to get done. With only 2 hours between when Leah goes to bed and when I get ready to go to bed, I need to decide what’s the most important to get done: housekeeping, exercise, reading, computer time, family games, Nintendo, TV, and so on. I have actually been reading a bit more than usual and been a lot more efficient about other things, including the journals I’ve been keeping and spending less time connected to the computer.

Overall, I’d say my major goal in 2011 is to reduce waste. Wasted time, wasted food, wasted money. If 2010 taught me anything, it is that life is very short and that I don’t always make good choices in how to expend the resources at my disposal. I choose the wrong times, the wrong people, the wrong “stuff”… I can’t say it’s easy, but I do have some changes in mind that I hope to accomplish and I hope to be less worried about how that affects other people and non-priorities in my life (I’m pretty sure Walmart will continue to thrive with or without my buying crap at their store). Hopefully I’ll blog a bit more this year, it is hard with posting to Facebook a lot, but maybe I’ll do that a little bit less too…

Happy 2011, everyone! Thanks for a great 2010.

Resolutions

2010-12-24T18:28:00.001-08:00

This year, I’m making 2 personal resolutions and we have one family resolution.

My personal resolutions are as follows:

1. To have an actual bedtime. I’m planning to be in bed, ready to sleep, every night by 10pm. Computer off, iPod off, journal written, book read, lights out. It is so ridiculous any more that I am waking up exhausted. I have zero energy. Of course there are exceptions, like book club night, but I’m hopeful that by and large I can get a lot more rest and also set a good example for my teen, who is also suffering some sleep depravation and has concluded she needs a 9:00 bedtime (despite being pissed off at us when we told her she had to be in bed by 9:30 . We gave up and let her stay up as late as she wants and somehow she has trouble staying awake at school when she is up till 11:00 playing cards or watching tv. Hmmm, funny how that happens?) Last night I was in bed by 10:00 and I slept till 6:00. I was still tired when I woke up, so Michael took over Daddy Duties and I slept till nearly 10:00 this morning. My body is clearly crying out for more sleep, so it’s time to give in and let it have it. The shows I enjoy that are on after 10pm are all free on demand, so bonus, I can watch them with fewer or no commercials at the same time.

2. No more going out for meals. I guess this is more of a family resolution, although it is my idea. I’ve calculated all the money we’ve spent and it’s outrageous. Not to mention gas, the time we spend ferrying ourselves around to get to a restaurant, and the time we spend waiting around to be served. In the time alone it takes us to get there, order, and get home, I could have dinner prepared. Penny has let it be known that she prefers my cooking to anything we have eaten at a restaurant, and between that, saving a lot of money, and saving time, I think it’s a good idea. We’ll see how we do on tired nights, but hopefully with getting more sleep, I won’t be as tired.

I just read back over my resolutions for last year and I did a pretty good job, actually. Of course I didn’t get back on track with Weight Watchers or any other diet plan in a serious capacity, but I’m ok with that. I did do a lot of walking and working out this spring and summer and I completed a 5K, which I am proud of. But I have not been anyone’s doormat to the extent I usually have been, and we did apply to host an exchange student and are in the midst of that experience right now. Parenting a teen has been a challenge. I’m not going to lie. There have been times I’ve wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening. But the joy in it has been far greater than the few minor headaches she’s given me.

As a family, we’ve also decided to add a workout regiment to our night time routine. Penny wants to learn some aerobics, so I’m going to introduce her to some DVD’s and we’ll try some things. Michael is going to hop back on the treadmill. Once the weather warms up, Leah and I will hit the open road again.

2010 has been a great year, even with my accident and family issues. I can’t wait for 2011.

Advent Week 3 Thoughts

2010-12-14T19:26:00.001-08:00

This week’s theme was love. Whenever I think of love, I think of Mother Teresa. She had a lot to say about the power of love. So instead of finding a big quote and a small quote, I printed off 2 sheets of her quotations and we chose three of them to read out loud.

If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.

Let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.

Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do, but how much love we put in that action.

It is nearly impossible to believe that we’re on the third week of Advent. I am ready for Christmas, I tell myself. If that’s true or not bears waiting to see, just like the season itself.

Letter to the People Who are Supposed to Be Representing Us

2010-12-11T05:31:00.001-08:00

Dear President Obama, Senators Warner and Webb, and Representative Wittman:

This has been a lousy week in our household. I’m putting the blame squarely on your shoulders. This week, it was announced that federal employees will not receive a pay raise for the next two years. And it was announced that federal employee transit benefits will be slashed in half. Now apparently this is due to the fact that they were raised and were due to come back down. Unfortunately for us, it comes at a time when our sole breadwinner is now commuting 4 hours a day to get to his job, which he loves might I add, in our nation’s traffic clogged capital, and because he has been unable to find someone to carpool with, he must now take the train and Metro to get to work. A train which is frequently late. A Metro that frequently has “issues”. In October, he was leaving home at 7:15 and getting home between 4 and 5. Now he leaves our home at 5:15 and gets home at 6:30. Doesn’t say much for our quality of life when we can’t spend time with our husband/father, who is exhausted when he gets back from those kind of hours, does it!

The pay freeze and benefit reduction news also came at a time this week when I drove by the local gas stations around here and nearly choked on my own teeth to see a sharp spike in gas prices. In case you didn’t notice, gas here is back to nearly $3 per gallon. I suppose I should feel fortunate—in many cases it’s back over $3 per gallon. And you know that manufacturers and retailers are not going to swallow the increase in gas prices on their end. They tack it onto the price of the goods that we have to buy. So really, we get to pay for our gas and everyone else’s.

Our health insurance co-pays have increased. I can only assume this is on account of the fact that those health insurance bastards had to lobby you guys so heavily not to support free health care for everyone. They must be laughing now that the bill you passed will only make them richer. I full support free health care for all. I just wish you had done it right. You had an amazing opportunity to do so, something that could have been your enduring legacy, but you blew it. Good work.

We are far from being in financial dire straits. This year we have taken in an exchange student. I still do not work so that I can be a stay at home mom to our 20 month old. If I was working, the majority of my income would be going to pay for day care and commuting costs. But don’t think I haven’t thought about going back to work. I even contacted my former boss who said I am a phone call away from being employed. Do you know how lucky I am? Because there are literally millions of people out there right now who are either scraping by at jobs they are overqualified for, who are unemployed, or who are in fear that their jobs are going to vanish.

Because of the pinch we’re starting to feel, even just a little bit, our lifestyle will change in the new year. This year, we’ve already started buying generics on things that don’t especially matter—things like “raw materials” for cooking (flour, sugar, oil, etc)—and medicine. We will continue to do so.

The last several years, we have re-invested our tax return into the economy. We adopted our beautiful little girl. We made major improvements to our home. We went on vacation. We discussed what we’re doing this year and my advice to my husband was, “I think we’d better save whatever pittance we get.” And that’s what we’ve agreed to do.

We will seriously slash the amount of travel that we do, both locally and nationally. We do hope to travel next summer to see a former exchange student, but other than that, our plans are to stay home or to visit family. Traveling by air has become such a pain in the butt that we don’t have any plans to do it unless it is absolutely necessary. Between extra fees for just putting a bag on the plane, the new security measures that we may or may not be subject to, and the prices of actually flying, we’re better off staying home. Thankfully the Smithsonian is still free and nearly in our backyard. This past year, we traveled to New York, Florida, North Carolina, Georgia. Next year, once our exchange daughter has gone back home to Thailand, we won’t probably go anywhere. We are fortunate to have been able to show her some of our beautiful country, but we won’t be able to show her a whole lot more of it other than visiting our parents.

I have been running all over town with my younger daughter this year as well, taking her to story time and a local toddler gym and the mall and playground. I participate in a local choir and run a book club. We have a very active group of friends who like to go sightseeing and bowling and out to meals. Where our schedule or that of a babysitter has permitted, we’ve enjoyed joining them. No more. My activities will be restricted to my book club and choir, my daughter’s to the park, toddler gym, and story time at our public library, which has slashed its hours and needs funding. I loved going to visit former co-workers and going to friends’ parties and meeting for lunch. But I think the days of wine and roses are coming to a close.

We have agreed that in 2011, we will no longer go out to eat at restaurants. We went out last night with 4 friends, and on top of quite a pricey bill, we had to tack on a babysitter. It was a sobering wake up call as to exactly how much we spend on something that ultimately really doesn’t matter that much. We can stay home and not pay gas to get somewhere, pay higher prices for a meal, and pay extra money for a tip for the waitress and a babysitter. Oh sure, I know, we should be supporting the American economy. I’ve heard all those precious little soundbites from all of you. But let’s face it. As a card carrying member of the middle class, I can only do so much. My dollar only goes so far, and it’s not really going anywhere at the moment.

But of course, you don’t seem to much care about that. You just passed a big tax cut again for the wealthiest Americans. I know three of the four of you are going to tell me that it was necessary to help out the little guy, but let me ask you this: since when did doing the right thing have to be tied to doing the wrong thing? Republicans like you, Rep. Whitman, are screaming that it was necessary in order to help job growth in this country. Much like Reaganomics, they swear the effect will trickle down into the rest of the population. These tax cuts have been in effect nearly a decade, and forget a trickle, there hasn’t even been dripping. When are we supposed to see some positive effect?

Senator Webb, your email this week was the proverbial salt in the wound. President Obama, when I shook hands with you in 2008, I felt sure I was shaking hands with one of the greatest men of my lifetime. Representative Wittman, I have even been to your office, only to be told the reasons I’m wrong. Senator Warner, I hear nothing from you, literally nothing. I had to go to your website this morning to read up on anything you’ve been doing, only to find out that while you’re “disappointed” in the tax cut deal, you’re going to vote for it anyway. What!? When either of my daughters does something that “disappoints” me, I don’t say, “Oh well, let’s just say it’s ok anyway.” All four of you are about debt reduction, as long as it doesn’t come at a price.

Well, as detailed above, my family’s debt reduction will seriously reduce the amount of money we’re pumping into the American economy, and we are not unique among American families. And watch our choices and the choices of other families trickle down.

Gentlemen, let me assure you that unless something drastic changes, I will not vote for a single one of you when you are up for re-election. I’m not switching sides and voting for the other guy. I’m going to hope someone new comes along with some new ideas, someone whose vote that is supposed to represent me, protect me, and make my family’s life better hasn’t already been bought and paid for by huge corporate donations I cannot hope to match. Let me remind you that the votes of the people got you into office and that’s who you should answer to. Every single one of you seems to have forgotten it. Quit “playing the game” and start making life better for all of us.

Advent Week 2

2010-12-07T19:30:00.001-08:00

Reflections on Peace:

Peacefulness is an inner sense of calm—it comes from becoming still—in order to reflect and meditate on our inner wisdom and receive answers. A peaceful heart is one that is free from worry and trouble. It’s becoming quiet so we can look at things quietly so we can more clearly understand them and thus come up with creative solutions. It is learning to live in the present.

“Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.”

--Desiderata

The Saga of the Gas Points

2010-12-02T11:50:00.001-08:00

We have a local grocery store chain here in town that offers you 10 cents off your gas for every $100 you spend in groceries. While I love Wegman’s, gas prices are so high that I can’t help but go spend money at said chain and get some kickbacks towards my gas. You earn 1 point per dollar spent and 100 points per $100.

The way it works is that you can accumulate all the points you can in a 30 day stretch and then the points expire after that 30 days. You can use them as you earn them, providing you have a minimum of 100 points. Regardless, either after using them or 30 days has passed, your balance is supposed to go back to zero and you start earning again.

About 8 weeks ago, I was at 257 points. I took Penny to the store and told her we HAD to spend 43 dollars because we were planning to drive up to Northern VA and I wanted to get 30 cents off my gas. Well, despite our best efforts, we only spent about 40 dollars. Imagine my shock when I looked at the receipt and it said I had 320 points! I was not going to argue with it, so we went to the gas station and got our 30 cents off gas and I was so happy.

The next time we went shopping, I spent enough that I thought I’d have 100 points again. But somehow, this time, I had 460 points! I was afraid there’d been a mistake, so I jumped in the car, ran over to the gas station, and sure enough, I got 40 cents off my gas.

This has been on going. The day of my Gerber party, I went through the line and after picking up snacks and so on, the tape told me I had 520 points. I had forgotten something and when I paid again (not having left the store, mind you), my points dropped to 480 points! I did our family grocery shopping the very next day and was up to 580 points. In no ways did the totals reflect what I was spending.

Over Thanksgiving, I was getting close to 700 points. Mike and Lesley needed some groceries, my dad needed things for Thanksgiving, and we needed odds and ends here and there. Sure enough, I was up to 800 points by the end of their visit. But the weird thing is, Mike and Lesley checked out their groceries and the clerk gleefully exclaimed that they had 800 points and 80 cents off. They handed my key tag to my dad and he only had 750 points. Again, I never left the store.

At the end of Thanksgiving before my dad left, I ran to the store to grab our weekly groceries, and I suddenly had 1000 points!! I told my dad to go fill up his car quick, as he’d get a dollar off. When he got there, however, he only got 10 cents off per gallon instead of the dollar I was expecting. Last night I went to get gas there just to see what would happen, and despite the fact that I had not grocery shopped at all, the machine endowed me with 80 cents per gallon off. I haven’t paid more than $2.20 for gas in 2 months, and I haven’t paid more than $1.89 per gallon in a month.

Today I went to pick up some sodas and the receipt has informed me I have a mere 50 points at present. I can’t help but wonder if that’s going to change when I grocery shop this weekend. I don’t know what’s going on with their system, but I hope it stays weird. I’m enjoying the hell out of my savings!

Thoughts for Advent

2010-11-29T20:15:00.001-08:00

The picture you will see below is my Advent wreath. My mother once upon a time entwined the holly garland around what is otherwise a plain green candleholder. In the aftermath of my parents’ divorce, I somehow wound up with this. Judy wound up with the prayers that we read during each week of Advent, one per week.

I don’t remember the prayers, but I remember the topics. There was one each for peace, hope, faith, and love. With Leah getting older and with us having Penny in the house, someone from another culture and religion entirely, I wanted to make Advent and the wreath about something more than just lighting a candle in a wreath that sits in the middle of our table each night.

However, we are not an overly religious family either. So to say prayers together feels strange to me. Instead, I have decided that each week I will share some passages about the given topic for the week. We lit the wreath tonight instead of last night, as we were busy last night with getting people to airports, choir practice, Leah, Yahtzee, and PopPop. Tonight, it was again just the four of us, and time for some quiet, serene reflection. I chose two passages to read my sweet family, the longer one before, the short quotation afterwards. I have put the picture in the middle to indicate when we lit our candle. From here on out, each week, I will simply include a photo of the wreath with the next candle lit and our before and after passages. I hope you find these as interesting, sweet, and thought provoking as I did.

Thoughts on Faith From Garrison Keillor:

What keeps our faith cheerful is the extreme persistence of gentleness and humor. Gentleness is everywhere in daily life, a sign that faith rules through ordinary things: through cooking and small talk, through storytelling, making love, fishing, tending animals and sweet corn and flowers, through sports, music, and books, raising kids—all the places where the gravy soaks in and grace shines through. Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people. Lacking any other purpose in life, it would be good enough to live for their sake.

“Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation.”
--Elton Trueblood

Final Book for Twenty Ten

2010-11-29T19:57:00.001-08:00

As the month of November was winding down, I was getting increasingly desperate to find something to read that I could finish quickly and get done with the TwentyTen Challenge. Finally, I went over to my shelf of TBR’s, the only category I had left, and decided to pick out the absolute shortest book I could find and read it. That book happened to be a book called something like It’s Not What It Seems or something like that, a book about a brother and sister whose father moves out on their mother to go write the great American novel. They spend their summer opening and running their own restaurant. Anyway, it wasn’t that great a book—obviously if I can’t even remember the title—and I wound up tossing the book in my recycle bin. I went back to the drawing board because I really wouldn’t have much to blog about that book and found Lois Lowry’s Find a Stranger, Say Goodbye. I had a sneaking suspicion I’d have a lot to say about this book, and I think I was right.

(WARNING: This review is downright chock-full of spoilers!)

First, I will offer up the summary from the back of the book:

Natalie has everything—beauty, a loving family, a terrific boyfriend, and an entrance to the college of her choice. But she is haunted by a missing link in her life—who is the mother who gave her up when she was only a few days old?

The summer she is seventeen, Natalie decides to find out who were her natural parents and what has happened to them. Old newspapers and a high school yearbook yield clues that start to unravel the mystery of her past. From a small town in Maine to New York City, Natalie’s search leads to anger, hope, even love—and finally a confrontation with her real mother.

Ok. So of course as an adoptive mother myself, I take issue with the wording that Natalie is off to find her real mother. But seeing as the book was written in 1978, I’m willing to give it a bit of a pass. Although people still ask me if I’ve heard from Leah’s real mother even now, so I guess I’m just the artificial substitute.

Anyway, the book was fairly compelling reading, and I’ve ready many of Lowry’s books in my youth and greatly enjoyed them. I guess this one touched on some of my own fears as an adoptive mother. If you happen to be new to my blog, here’s a picture of me and my precious daughter, Leah:

She’s African-American, and I’m Caucasian. There’s no denying the fact, even if I wanted to, that she’s adopted. (For the record, I wouldn’t want to, I’m proud of the fact that we were chosen to adopt her from all the parents who could have been hers. )

To give credit where credit is due, Lowry’s fictional adoptive parents also make no secret of the fact that their daughter was adopted. When Natalie approaches them to ask if they will give her information to go on her search, they take months to come to terms with the idea that Natalie wants to go in search of her “real mother”. I hope and pray that if Leah comes to me, she doesn’t use that terminology. My husband and I have chosen to have an open relationship with Leah’s birthmother (a phrase which even now, only a year after our adoption has been finalized, is I do believe going out of fashion in favor), and we love her very much, but it would break my heart to hear Leah refer to someone else as her “real mother”. It’s bad enough when other people ask me that question!

Natalie’s parents finally relent, despite the hurt they feel, and provide Natalie with all the documents they have regarding her adoption—basically a letter from an attorney. From that point, Natalie is able to go to the town where she was born and piece together her past.

It does not hurt that Natalie is a spitting image of her birthmother. It does not hurt that this was taking place in the 70’s and Natalie was able to phone people and say, “I’m an old friend of Julie’s! Can you tell me where to get in touch with her?” and she was given tons of information and phone numbers.

What really got me is that Julie, Natalie’s birthmother, is a fashion model who lives in a fabulous home on New York City’s Upper East Side with her husband and two sons. I genuinely would have preferred a book that touched on a more realistic scenario and not one that somehow indicates perhaps that giving up an infant when you are a child yourself will somehow allow you to catapult into a world of wealth and fame. (Props to Lowry for making Julie a pregnant teen—in today’s world of MTV’s Teen Moms, it would be refreshing to see more teens selflessly giving their children a life that ultimately they have little hope of being able to provide during their own adolescence.)

Julie reluctantly agrees to meet Natalie at the Russian Tea Room and attempts to get Natalie to join the world of high fashion modeling. Then abruptly, she stands up and strolls out of their lunch, only to call Natalie the next day and have her over to the house to meet her half brothers.

For all that she wanted to find and all that she did find, Natalie is ultimately glad that her family is her family, but that she did uncover the secrets of her past.

What Leah will discover when she asks us about her own background is very different from Natalie’s discoveries. I hope that like Natalie, Leah will remain true to herself and follow her own dreams, whether they be to know her family of origin or not to, whether they be to have some sort of relationship with her birthmother or not. She will always have me there for her, no matter what she chooses and how it turns out.

Here are a few of my “rules” for people inquiring about our adoption. I hope they come in handy if someone in your life is adopting or has been adopted.

1. Please don’t ask about an adoptee’s “real parents”. As I’ve said before, this is insulting to us. We have bandaged her scrapes, we have gotten up with her every night, we have fed her and clothed her, we’ve tickled her and tucked her in, we’ve hugged and kissed away the tears and aches and pains, and celebrated every milestone in her 19 months with her. To indicate that we are somehow not her “real” parents does us a disservice. In having to defend ourselves about being her “real” parents, we feel we must then do a disservice to the beautiful and brave young woman who made what I can assure you was a heart-breaking choice to ask us to parent her child for her in a way she could not.

2. Please do not ask an adoptee or their family why his/her mother “did not want her.” I can assure you that wanting her never was a factor in the equation. Leah was wanted by her birthmother very much. The reasons she chose to give Leah up for adoption and the reasons she chose us to parent her are intensely personal for her and for us. I can tell you that she loves Leah with every fiber of her being. She did what she felt was best at the time, and it was never an issue of “wanting”. I feel confident that for 99.99999999999999% of birthparents out there, it is the same.

3. Please do not inquire about an adoptee’s family of origin’s background, but if you do, do not expect to get all the minute details. On our part, our families and close friends know as much as we care to share. There are some things I wish I hadn’t shared, I can say honestly. We know as much of the story as Leah’s birthmother chose to share with her, and we shared as much of that with our loved ones as we felt comfortable. It would be unfair to share everything. It is not our story to tell.

4. If you do have information that a family has disclosed to you or that you may have gleaned from other sources somehow, please do not give that information to the adoptee unless asked. Again, using our family as an example, we will let Leah make her own choices about what and how much she wants to know, and she will do it in her own time. She may choose to know everything, she may choose not to know one single thing. It is only right and fair that she should hear it from us and from her birthmother, and from no one else. Even a slip of the tongue could cause unintentional pain if Leah were to overhear words that were unkind, untrue, or she didn’t want to know certain information.

5. Finally, be loud and proud of the adoption, the adoptee, and the adoptive family! Don’t treat the adoptee any differently. Truly no better and no worse. When I look at Leah, I see my daughter. I do believe that when my parents and my husband’s parents look at her, they see their granddaughter. I don’t think she gets any preferential treatment to my nephews or my niece, and I don’t think she is treated less well than they are. This is all I could hope for—her true acceptance into our family. Help make that a reality in your home too! Don’t whisper, “he’s adopted” when you think you’re out of earshot of the adoptive family—it sounds like something you’re ashamed of or something that should be kept quiet or secretive. When you hear others expressing doubt over adoption, share your family’s positive experiences, whether you are an adoptee, you have adopted, or a member of your family has adopted a child.

Ok, stepping off my soapbox now. So I am DONE DONE DONE with the TwentyTen Book Challenge. For the record, here are the books I read and each of the categories they fit into:

Young Adult:
13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnston
Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin

TBR:
Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum
Find a Stranger, Say Goodbye by Lois Lowry

New in 2010:
Sizzling Sixteen by Janet Evanovich
Miss Julia Renews Her Vows by Ann B. Ross

Shiny and New:
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
Someday My Prince Will Come by Jerramy Fine

Bad Bloggers
Moloka’i by Alan Brennert
Found II by Davy Rothbart

Charity
When Katie Wakes by Connie May Fowler
Leftovers by Laura Weiss

Older Than You:
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susanne
Galahad at Blandings by P.G. Wodehouse

Win! Win!
Secrets from the Vinyl Café by Stuart McLean
Never Change by Elizabeth Berg

“Who Are You Again?”
Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Riegler
The Leisure Seeker by Michael Zadoorian

Up to You!
Crackhouse by Terry Williams
Dear Diary by Lesley Arfin

Found II

2010-11-11T19:19:00.001-08:00

In my continuing quest to finish these book challenges, I have had a slight problem with the “Bad Blogger” part, as I only read one book blog regular, my BFF Lesley’s. (Well, ok, now I read Melissa's as well.)

Anyway, I had some listed that I thought I’d get around to that I’d read from Lesley’s blog, but on a recent trip to the bookstore-that-shall-not-be-named because I had to get a gift card for a friend, I found a copy of the book Found II in the $1 bin. I have been a fan of Found and it’s attendant website (www.foundmagazine.com) for several years now, so for $1, I swallowed my pride and bought the book.

I’m glad I only spent a dollar, honestly. I think Found might work better as a “blog” type thing. By about halfway through, I was tired of reading people’s dropped lists, letters, notes, emails, papers, etc. I put it aside for a few days and completed it a bit later on and that helped me to get through it.

I love the voyeuristic nature of Found, and the letters, pictures, and whatnot in this particular book were no exception. Recently I was walking with Leah down the street and we found a letter that I thought immediately of sending into Found, only Leah got her hands on it and ate it. Pity! It would have been perfect.

Nonetheless, I do and will continue to read the Found site/blog occasionally and catch up on new finds. But I don’t see myself reading it in book form any more! PostSecrets keeps my attention a bit more easily, maybe because it’s shorter. Some of the stuff in Found II went on a bit long! I’ll give it 3 stars on Goodreads.

And thus am I finished with one more book for the TwentyTen Challenge, leaving only the TBR category and one more book left to read, before I’ll have completed 3 of the challenges I signed up for. I am sure I’ll get it done before the end of December and am super-proud of myself for getting it done! WOO HOO! :-D

The Home Stretch

2010-11-09T08:47:00.001-08:00

I am in the home stretch, polishing off the final book challenge I signed up for this year. This week I finished several books, but only one of them can I count. Darn it! This week’s selection is Galahad at Blandings by P.G. Wodehouse. I read it as part of the TwentyTen Challenge, and am submitting it for the “Older Than You” category, as it was published for the first time in 1965, a full 10 years before I was published.

I first was introduced to Wodehouse by an online acquaintance who sent me a copy of Luck of the Bodkins and later by my father, who loves to read the Jeeves series. I have never gotten into those books, but having remembered the name and thought well enough of Luck, I was browsing at the Acton Library when we lived there (in 2003!) and found Galahad at Blandings as an audio book. I checked it out and read it and enjoyed it very much. The reader was fabulous.

Several years ago, I picked up a print copy and fully intended to read it again, but it has languished on my TBR shelf ever since. This seemed like a perfect opportunity to launch into it, as it is a fairly short book, which is my current criteria for getting these challenges read!

The story revolves around the setting of Blandings Castle, home of Lord Emsworth, a peaceful, pig-raising man earl whose home is overrun by his meddling sister Hermione, a new secretary named Sandy who is cleaning up his mess so he cannot find anything, and his brother Galahad, quite the man about town. “Gally” is a man never without words, he can literally talk his way into or out of anything and can convince others to do whatever he cares to.

Galahad at Blandings is the 9th book in the Castle Blandings series that Wodehouse wrote. I have only read one other book in the series, but enjoyed reading about The Empress, Lord Emsworth’s prize pig, who has a minor role in this story.

This particular book centers around young love—many engagements are broken due to various and sundry misunderstandings, the Empress is found drunk in her sty, a young lover is hiding out under an assumed name at the castle having popped a policeman in the eye and stolen his bike, Hermione is attempting to get Lord Emsworth married off to Dame Daphne Winkworth. Through it all, Gally is running around spouting stories of his wayward youth and attempting to reconcile all the young lovers while helping his brother rid himself of Hermione’s meddlesome guest and restore order to the Empress’s sheltered life.

I have to say that I didn’t enjoy reading the book as much as I enjoyed listening to the story on audio. The story was vastly entertaining, but I think there is something in the acting-out by a gentleman with a properly clipped accent that lends itself well to “reading” Wodehouse. The twists and turns that the story takes are uproarious, to be sure, and I highly recommend reading this book or other Wodehouse works to anyone who wants a good laugh. A slice of England, a good dose of humor, and an unbelievable plot that even in its complexity is easy to follow. I give this one a solid 3 out of 5 on GoodReads.com.

All I have left for the TwentyTen Challenge are TBR and Bad Blogger. And I’m almost done with Bad Blogger. :-D Hooray!

Being a Mom

2010-11-05T11:31:00.001-07:00

I haven’t exactly made a big secret out of the fact that I love my little girl more than anything in the universe. Today, for some reason, I am feeling compelled to sit and sing her praises, and to sing the praises of our newest family member and of being a mom in general.

I had no idea 2 years ago that I would be handed my sweet little baby and my life would be changed so dramatically. When I sit and think about what life was like pre-Leah and what life is like now, it’s no contest which way I’d rather have it. I haven’t posted to her blog in forever, and her milestones are slipping past me without my really recording them. Sometimes I feel like my mommy card should be revoked. I haven’t kept up with her baby book, I lost the lock of hair from her first haircut, I have no idea when she started really talking.

But every day, she and I engage more and more. Her mind is opening up and figuring things out and I am way too busy enjoying every second of this process to worry about the particular details. To listen to her speak actual words and tell me what she wants (whether she gets it or not is another matter) is truly awesome. Of course, her favorite word is “More!”, one word we could surely do without and there’s lots of guessing as to “more what?”, but just the idea that she can communicate with us is awesome. She says “bot bot” when she’s thirsty, “mama” when she wants me, “’Enny” when she wants her big sister, “dada” on the increasingly-more-frequent times she wants her father, and a host of other words. Unfortunately, she has developed a taste for soda, which I deny vigorously and which pisses her off royally. She loves lollipops from the doctor, could literally eat nothing for a meal except raw onions and broccoli (weird child!), prefers milk to juice, adores oranges and grapes, loves chicken and hamburger, and her favorite food word is “dog dog” which means hot dog.

She is learning other words too, especially “bubbles!” and “woof!” and “moo!” and “ball!” and “No!” When we ask her if she wants something and she doesn’t, she will vigorously shake her head and say “no no no no no no no!” She hasn’t come to terms with “yes!”, but we are working on it. If you ask her what a chicken says, she will tell you “bop bop bop” which is so stinkin’ cute as to be unreal. If you say “Go!” she will start running in circles until she falls over, dizzy and breathless, taking only a short break to regain her balance before doing it again. She is furious at my refusal to let her run into the street. She loves to color with crayons, pencils, pens, markers, or whatever she can get her hands on. She loves putting stickers everywhere. She loves building with blocks, popping bubbles, riding in toy cars, taking walks in her now decrepit stroller (sorry, Mike and Lesley, we put a lot of miles on this sucker and it’s time for a replacement!!! it was surely LOVED!!!!!!!!!), giving other kids at Toddlin’ Time the death glare if they get too close to her toys, going to storytime, reading books, playing children’s games, and exploring. She keeps us so, so busy. I literally fall into bed at night exhausted, but thrilled.

I do not parent Leah the way any of my friends parent their children. None of my friends parent their children the way anyone else I know parents their children. We all have our own unique styles, and every last one of us is raising amazing kids. I so admire my friends who continue to work while they have small children—even though I am excited at the prospect of returning to school, I am also terrified about trying to juggle studies with child-rearing. I am in awe of my friends who have more than one child under age 5. I always thought I would love to have a huge family, but I know now that there is no way I can manage another young child at this point. When I think about adopting again, it is equal parts of “Oh, I want to so badly” and “No way in heck!” Unless the scales tip in favor of “I want to so badly” then I think we’re a one baby family. But you never know, right?

Raising Leah and knowing what is best is like being in a pitch dark room the size of a football stadium and trying to find the light switch with only a birthday candle to guide me. She needs to know some discipline, but I don’t want to crush her essential Leah-ness. She has such a marvelous spirit about her, and to mold and shape her into a straight-and-narrow path would be to deny her who she is. This is part of the reason I allow her to be messy. I hate cleaning up the mess, and if I’m being honest, I sometimes ask, “Why do I have this messy child!?” But she never does anything I can’t undo, she doesn’t do anything outright destructive (other than coloring the white ottoman with crayons—haven’t figured that one out, but she did get in trouble for that one!), and it takes so little to “punish” her (taking away the crayons resulted in a hurling-herself-on-the-floor tempter tantrum) that she quickly learns not to do some things again.

Overall, though, she is a little superstar and I am proud to brag about her. The other day we were at the store. She now prefers to be strapped into carts that are forward facing so she can see her loyal subjects. As we cruised the aisles, she did her little Windsor wave to everyone whose path crossed ours. Young, old, fat, skinny, black, white, happy, sad, didn’t matter to her. She offered each person a toothy grin and a wave and giggle and people were just captivated. My sister-in-law suggested that because Leah knows how much she is loved by her mother and father, she can go out into the world and be totally confident to be who she is, even at this age, and give back some love to the world. I love that idea. And I love that P thinks we are doing a great job and loving our girl.

This past summer, adding Penny to the mix, I was concerned that maybe we’d mess up the good thing we had going. Michael and I have long discussed adding an older child to the family dynamic one of these days, either through fostering, adoption, or as we are doing now, through foreign exchange. We were both worried that we would not be able to relate to a teenager, and we both wanted something of a trial run at it before we actually parented a teen. We accepted Penny into our home, with all her previous 18 years of experience, background, how she was raised by her parents, none of which we knew. We did not understand her culture, nor did she understand ours.

Our time with her has not been without its challenges. We have had two major disagreements in the past 3 months since she’s been here. Nothing has been un-resolve-able, but it has been more difficult to sit down with a fully functioning nearly-adult human being and tell them they have to do x, y, or z and have them inform you that they do not share in your opinions and will do whatever the heck they feel like doing. And then to have to dole out “punishment” or restrictions to get them back into line.

When Leah was about 6 months old, I went through a difficult period where I was exhausted, going through a lot of issues with my family, and just wanted time to myself. The task of parenting was nearly overwhelming and someone told me that if I couldn’t handle it, I should just “give her back”. During the past week when we had some trying times with Penny, several people asked if we couldn’t just send her packing.

As a mom, there is no turning back. Whether taking in someone else’s infant to raise and love and care for or someone else’s teenager who needs a safe and happy place to call home for 10 months, I have made a commitment to both of my girls that will extend for the rest of my life as long as either of them wants me. Leah has helped me get in touch with my inner child, has given me confidence that I can be the person who matters like no other and in whom she can totally trust and depend and I can return that love on a level I never knew possible. Penny and I have a very close relationship in which we are able to share each other’s stories, play games, bake, and hang around together. She has helped me remember my essential me-ness: that is I am not just what everyone else “needs” me to be, I am a person with my own interests and opinions and experiences who has something to offer the world if I choose to do it. I can relate to a teenager and I can be there for her as she needs or doesn’t need me to be. Having Penny has helped me draw closer to my own parents (I called my mom early on in the school year and apologized for any time I’d ever been a pain in the ass; last week I called my dad and he happy reminded me of all the similar battles we went through when I was in high school to give me some perspective), has made me realize I’m not that old, taught me about the world and my own country, and brought me a new “daughter” who I adore.

Being a mom has been the most challenging and rewarding job ever, and I would not have traded these last 18 months for anything. Every night I whisper to Leah “you’re my favorite part of every day” before heading downstairs to bond with Penny some more. My life is an embarrassment of riches, and I am truly grateful.

W.W.W. Wednesday

2010-10-20T18:35:00.001-07:00

MizB of Should Be Reading sponsors WWW Wednesdays. I doubt I will participate in this one as often since my reading doesn’t change all that much from week to week lately. However, I’ll enjoy participating when my reading selections do change.

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

* What are you currently reading?
* What did you recently finish reading?
* What do you think you’ll read next?

1. I am currently reading two books. The first is The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender. It is a book club selection, a book I had never heard of before it was chosen for book club. So far, I’m enjoying it. Hopefully this is a good sign for the rest of the book club year! The second book is Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen. It was an impulse buy when I recently had an hour to myself in the local bookstore and a gift card from my birthday to burn. I am enjoying it a lot and am glad I picked it up (Thanks, Wendy, for the gift card!)

2. I recently finished the first book in Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Lightning Thief. It was a fun read, quick and easy and engaging.

3. I have the next Percy Jackson book, which I may read next. I was also plowing through Galahad at Blandings and The Great American Typo Hunt before I put them aside for the two books mentioned in Question/Answer #1. This is a common problem I have, actually. I’ll be happily reading along in a great book, and then other great books come along, so I put down the first books to start the new ones. I need to develop some kind of follow through! Anyone else do this?

Teaser Tuesday

2010-10-19T19:13:00.001-07:00

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

At present I am reading 2 books, so I’ll post a teaser for each.

“The walls seemed to sag around us. The toast wavered in the air.”

                                         --The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
                                            (Aimee Bender)

“What of religion itself? Clouds, tornadoes, sins awhirl before some imagined but necessary altar—a Perfect Storm of jingoism!”

                                        --Mennonite in a Little Black Dress
                                           (Rhoda Janzen)

Many thanks to Sarah at Run, Bake, Read for a fun new Tuesday something-to-do!

Whirlwind Weekend

2010-10-18T04:55:00.001-07:00

This is one of those weekend that got so busy and so crazy so quickly that you’re almost glad it’s Monday. Except that I don’t have back up to keep Leah entertained on Monday. But it’s nice to have her to myself today!

Last Tuesday, we got the mail and in it was a little postcard from Lisner Auditorium. I was sitting on the back porch when Penny brought the mail up and as I read the postcard, I yelled, “Holy sh**!” and ran in the house to buy my tickets for Cinematic Titanic, the live MST3K show. I got a great seat and emailed my friend Joe and asked him to go with me, since we spent a good deal of college watching MST3K.

Friday night, we met up at the Lisner and headed over to Bertucci’s for dinner. It was a big night for us, every October on some nebulous date, we celebrate one more year of friendship, and this year we celebrated being friends for 16 years. I brought him some fun cards and he paid for dinner. Due to the crappy service at Bertucci’s, we sat around for 90 minutes, but it was a fun time to reminisce and talk about life now and I got to preview his new comic book, which is amazing. (way to go, Joe!)

The show was spectacular. I laughed for 2 1/2 solid hours. The movie was predictably horrible. Although the postcard read for something like “Battle of the Insects”, the real name of the movie was Genocide. (But as they pointed out, who wants to say they went to the theater to see genocide, and even worse, who wants to say they laughed at it?) When Joel Hodgson stepped out on stage, the whole theater erupted. One of the cast members said, “MST3K fans are the best fans in the world. You know why? Because the show has been off the air for 12 years and you’re still packing auditoriums!” WOO HOO!!!!

The movie was horrible—I was actually bored of it, although not of the experience, but I was just like, “Come on already!” As the MST3K cast riffed on the movie, there was a chance for them to interact with the audience depending on how we reacted to their jokes, so it was just amazing. Joe and I agreed to bookmark it and if they ever come back to DC, sign us up!

Afterwards, we got on line to get autographs. I had dug out my old VHS tapes, which Joe was extremely impressed at their condition. And I had picked up a couple of DVD’s at Borders the night before. The line was quite long but moved rather quickly and it was exciting to get up there and talk to the cast. Joel said hello and shook my hand (I’ll never wash it again! haha) and then signed my tapes and I moved on down the line. For some reason, one of my DVD sets piqued their interest as none of them had seen it before. Go figure! It was awesome to meet Trace Beaulieu (unrecognizable without the crazy hair) and Frank Conniff, who looks exactly the same as he did as TV’s Frank. I shook hand with all of them and they were all so nice. Joe and I were beside ourselves.

I got home around midnight, and I was exhausted, but I knew the cavalry was coming. Saturday morning, I got up and we got Leah ready to go to Woodbridge to spend they day with Auntie Melissa. We drove her up there and dropped her and a pile of toys off and then came home. Penny was waiting for us, and she told us she missed Leah as soon as we walked in the door! :-D She had Homecoming on Saturday night, so she was excited to go dancing with her friends. I spent the day cleaning up the house, which I am happy to report is still pretty clean even though Hurricane Leah has been home a full day now. It only took me a few hours and then everything was more or less up to snuff—I need to wash the floors, but other than that, I’m in good shape, vacuuming, dusting, and surfaces all complete.

Penny’s friend Ashley came over around 4:30 to do her hair and make up and I sat down and watched a zombie prank on YouTube that my buddy Steve had posted to his Facebook. I was laughing so hard Penny and Ashley came down to see what the heck was going on. I don’t know where the Japanese get off making this kind of stuff, but it is HILARIOUS. I was crying I was laughing so hard, mainly because I could totally picture Leah kicking the zombie in the back. If you want to see it, click here.

Afterwards, we got Penny dressed and took a few photos before going up the hill to see the family of the young man she was taking to the dance, who happened to be Ashley’s cousin. He was all dressed up and ready to go, so we all took a bunch of pictures and then Ashley, Penny, and JB headed out and Michael and I came home to go have a quiet dinner somewhere. We decided on Ruby Tuesday’s. We went to the one in Central Park, but it was JAMMED, so we took off and went to the one on Mine Road, where we had a delightful meal.

We came home and decided it was a perfect night to spark up the firepit and have some smores and our neighbor Jett came over to say hello while we were out there. We chatted with him for a while till the fire died out and then retreated to the warmth of the house just in time to get the call that Penny was on her way home. I downloaded the new Sara Bareilles song King of Anything, which has become my new anthem of the moment and when Penny arrived, we were debriefed on the fun of homecoming, at which it seems she had a great time, and that was confirmed looking at her pictures!

Sunday, Melissa brought Leah home, although Leah didn’t particularly care if she was brought home or not (between you and me, I think she enjoys the spoiling she gets up there). We took Melissa out to lunch as a thank you for watching our girl and then she headed out and I made a big pot of tomato sauce for my family for dinner, since I was heading up to NPR. I had planned to bake pumpkin cookies, but frankly, I fell asleep. The only thing that woke me up at 4:00 was my mother-in-law calling to talk to Penny. :-) Since I needed to leave around 4:30, it was just as well. I got up and found Penny and called back to Rhode Island and got myself together and headed out to WAMU, with a quick stop to get gas. I don’t know how it happened, but I saved 60 cents on gas at Giant, which was awesome. I thought I’d save about 40 cents, which would have been good enough, but 60 cents is even better!

I got to WAMU at 6:10 or so and found my preferred table was back where I wanted it to be. My sister walked in and a bat-shit crazy part of me was so happy to see her that I even smiled at her, which she completely ignored and sat elsewhere with her husband. I found his presence interesting on a number of levels that I can’t really go into. Anyway, it was a good night, we raised $35,000 in 3 hours. I only took about 8 calls and not for big money, but a lot of people were getting small donations that apparently added up to a bunch of money in the end. A place called Tonic (I think) provided the meal, which was a chicken pasta dish, bbq chicken, mashed potatoes, carrots, salad, cupcakes and brownies. The food was very good, especially the salad. I picked up 5 or 6 new books from the table, which was cool, read a lot of my book club book, and I was home by 11:30. I’m looking forward to the February campaign!

Good thing too since Michael’s carpool driver didn’t sleep last night (I know the feeling), so he had to get me up at 6:00 to go and take him to the train. It was actually nice, though, as I got to spend some time with Penny before she left for school, and I was able to write out her note for missing a couple days for our upcoming trip. I took a hot shower and now I’ve been able to fill in my blog updates! WOW!

By some miracle, it’s 7:45 and Leah is still sleeping! It was most definitely an awesome weekend. My father once told my sister that I didn’t understand the importance of feeding the soul. Well I do, and this weekend, I fed it by just being me and having a whole lot of fun. And can I just say, walking into a clean house is a real boon to the spirits! I’ve been beating myself up mentally a lot lately, and this was just one of those weekends that let me put things into perspective.

Coming up, I will finish off my grad school applications—I am waiting on one more letter of recommendation—and we are heading out for my mom’s 60th birthday soon. Penny and I will spend a day at Disney World, her first time there. She has triple and quadruple invitations to Halloween parties, so she has to decide what she wants to do about Halloween and I have decided to skip the Rally to Restore Sanity to preserve my own sanity so I can take the girls to the pumpkin patch and we can carve pumpkins and whatnot. The annual Kosior Fall Festival—I want it to happen! :)

Ta ta for now!

Miss Julia Renews Her Vows

2010-10-05T19:47:00.001-07:00

I have long been a fan of the Miss Julia books. Recently, however, I was disappointed with the last book, Miss Julia Paints the Town, and so when I heard there was a new Miss Julia on her way, I felt like maybe I’d hate it. I’ve been shucking off series here and there that haven’t kept my interest (for instance, I haven’t read a Diane Mott Davidson mystery in a long time, nor did I make the leap to Jan Karon’s new Father Tim books despite enjoying the Mitford series immensely until the last couple). Still, I never flat out quit reading a series until I give it a fair shake, so I decided that I would read the latest Ann B. Ross offering, Miss Julia Renews her Vows, and see if Miss Julia was worth continuing.

***SPOILER ALERT: If you are just starting out with this series, you may find information contained herein that will tell you what happens later on in the books. Be forewarned that you may want to stop if you don’t want to know what happens with the characters in future novels.

I started the book earlier this year, snagging a copy on sale at a local bookstore as soon as I saw it was out. I read the first chapter and thought, “Oh jeez” and put it aside. The book begins with Miss Julia breaking the news to her considerable social circle that Hazel Marie and Mr. Pickens have gotten themselves hitched. Hazel Marie is embarrassed to have the word come out at the same time that she has to announce she is pregnant with twins, as she knows the town gossips’ tongues will be wagging about her eloping and being in a family way. Miss Julia arranges to have a luncheon and concocts a story to cover Hazel Marie and JD’s “extra-curricular activities.”

As I started reading all this, I was like, “This is so unnecessarily complicated!” The charm of the Miss Julia books, for me, come in thinking about a very proper old lady who gets thrown into circumstances in which she has to act against a lifetime of rules she has invented about what good breeding entails in one’s behavior. But let’s face it, Hazel Marie is Miss Julia’s dead husband’s former mistress. No one expects that Hazel Marie is necessarily a paragon of virtue, no matter how she acts now that she is somewhat “reformed”. Add to that the fact that Mr. Pickens is married 4 times now and there’s really not much to worry about.

Fortunately, however, Ross strays away from this story line as Miss Etta Mae Wiggins calls from the police station and pleads with Miss Julia to come down and bail her out, as she is being interrogated, suspected of bashing in the head of one of her clients. Meanwhile, Miss Julia’s pastor has invited Pastor Fred back to conduct marriage enrichment classes, which Miss Julia’s husband, Sam, agrees to attend in support of the church. Both these events send shockwaves through Miss Julia’s household, and she does her best to help Etta Mae and avoid Pastor Fred at all costs.

Both of those parts of the book showcase Miss Julia at her finest. This was not even close to my favorite Miss Julia book, but it was good enough that I was inspired to continue reading the series for now. I’ll be glad in the next book to find out if Hazel Marie gives birth to two girls named Lillian and Julia, as I suspect she will, or if Ross has something else up her sleeve. 3 out of 5 stars on GoodReads.com

Miss Julia Renews her Vows also fulfills my last requirement for the What's In a Name? Challenge by giving me a title with a title in it, the title being “Miss”. To sum up, I read:

Body of Water: Your Oasis on Flame Lake (Lorna Landvik) (review here)
Food: Leftovers (Laura Wiess) (review here)
Music: Secrets from the Vinyl Cafe (Stuart McLean) (review here)
Place Name: Moloka’i (Alan Brennert) (review here)
Plant: Columbine (Dave Cullen) (review here)
Title: Miss Julia Renews Her Vows (Ann B. Ross)

There is not one book I read for this challenge that I did not like. I think I got lucky with this challenge, since ever single one of them was excellent and I was able to use many of them to cover other challenges as well. Many thanks to Beth F. for hosting the challenge and I’m pleased I was able to complete it, although I’m not sure I used a single book in my sign up blog entry as I planned to!

It also is my second selection for the TwentyTen Book Challenge as a “New in 2010” title selection. I have only 3 books left, 1 each in the categories of To Be Read, Bad Blogger, and Older Than You, and I have roughly 3 months to complete it! I think I’ll get there.

Bitches With Books

2010-10-04T09:50:00.001-07:00

October marks the last month of any given year of our book club’s schedule. This October was particularly special, in that I had asked all the women in the club if they would grant me a wish and come down to Fredericksburg once for book club. I haven’t hosted a meeting in my home since November 2004, when we lived in Centreville, because the commute to the ‘burg is insane. I was pleased when everyone agreed to come on down and lose out on a Saturday of their precious weekend to come to my place and talk book.

Last month’s meeting got a little rowdy, and while we were all laughing and crying and enjoying ourselves, Lauren suggested that we should include a night at the bingo hall at the end of book club as part of the F’burg experience. Then I was beyond excited! So it was set, October 2 was books and bingo day.

I selected The Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger as my book for this year. I love going to book club and discussing the books, don’t get me wrong, but I also wanted to shake things up a little bit and try something new. Since I knew we’d have a good amount of time between book club and bingo, I decided to change our format of eating and discussing to include arts and crafts hour.

Cecily contacted Steve and he agreed to call into the club meeting at 2:00pm. We were scheduled to start the meeting at 1pm, but of course with a car fire on I95, everyone got to the house around 1:30. We tucked into our food (Dinner theme: What would you serve if your favorite celebrity came to dinner?), and then discussed the book for a few minutes until the phone rang and Steve was ready to chat with us!

He is a fascinating book club speaker and talked with us for about 45 minutes. He told us lots of stories about how the book came to be, who the characters were, and so forth, and a hilarious story about the Tony Awards (seriously, if you ever have him call into your club, ask him about that one!).

Afterwards, I finished off with one of my favorite quotes in the book and then it was time to set the schedule for next year. We have an awesome round up of books coming up this year (see below for the list) and I’m really excited to get reading!!! We asked Penny to take a group photo as well. She agreed, but we had pre-arranged that after we took one regular shot, we would all make a peace sign like Penny does in most of her pictures. Oh my gosh, she was so embarrassed and laughing. it was ADORABLE!

The it was time to get busy and do some crafty fun! I asked each member to bring a picture of someone who had changed their life and be ready to talk about it. We went around the circle with our pictures and everyone started talking about the person who influenced them. More than a few tears were shed as we talked about moms and best friends and teachers and aunts and uncles. It was a special and moving experience that I can’t hope to capture here, but it was awesome to be a part of.

Then I got out all my scrapbooking materials and we set up shop on the coffee table. Pretty soon scraps of paper were flying, stickers were being exchanged, and projects began to take shape. I’m so glad I decided to do something a little different—I think it was a whole lot of fun for everyone and gave us all a lot to think about.

The person I selected was the school librarian from my school growing up. I first remember meeting Mrs. Collins (at the time, Miss LeBel) when I was in kindergarten and she really inspired me with what has become a lifetime love of reading. In 1998, when I had moved home and was trying to figure out what to do with my life, Mrs. Collins would request me all the time as her sub when she was out. In the spring of 1999, she asked me to be her long term sub while she battled cancer, a fight she ultimately won. Then she was diagnosed with MS and retired from the library. This spring, I was lucky enough to see her at my dad’s retirement party, and introducing her to my husband and my daughter was a special moment for me. Then I sat down with her and began to talk about the new crossroads in my life: what’s next? What am I going to do with myself after Leah doesn’t need me full time any more? Mrs. Collins responded, “You would make a great librarian.”

So here I am now applying to library school, the final push in the right direction having been applied. And I have asked Mrs. C to write me a reference.

Back to book club…

After we all finished our projects and shared them, we had some time to hang out and relax until bingo. We started packing up at about 5:45 and headed over to Wawa for some extra provisions in case our meeting leftovers didn’t hold out. We got to bingo a trifle bit late, so we all had to cram around a table for 6 (and there were 7 of us and the people next to us were not giving an inch!).

Luck held. Melissa won big, $100, her first ever bingo win! For most of the night, we were all sitting around laughing, eating, and hoping for big winnings, but Melissa was the lucky draw. Then a few games later, my number came up at the exact same time 6 other people’s lucky number came up, so I won a whopping $14. Ah well, it nearly paid my admission! :) A win is a win is a win, right?

Anyway, at the meeting, we officially agreed that a) we would change our names from NoVa Lit Chicks to Bitches with Books and that b) Books and Bingo will now be an annual event and I’ll get to host, so I am over the moon excited with how great that is. My favorite girls, my favorite game, my favorite hobby! What gets better than that?

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Bitches With Books Year 7 Reading List

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
The Opposite of Me by Sarah Pekkaner
The Mighty Queens of Freeville by Amy Dickinson
Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay
The Postmistress by Sarah Blake
The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom
A Scattered Life by Karen McQuestion

and 4 choices to be named later. Happy reading!

Columbine

2010-09-21T08:39:00.001-07:00

I have been wanting to read the book Columbine by Dave Cullen for months now. I’ve had it on my PBS wish list, but the numbers have never gone down substantially. This past week, I started taking Leah to Mother Goose story hour at our local library and while we were wandering around afterwards, I spotted the book in the lobby and snagged it. After finishing Moloka’i, I knew I would have to find something similarly gripping, and I hoped Columbine would be it.

I was not disappointed. Before I sat down, I tried to recall the things I thought I knew about Columbine. When it happened, my husband and I were on our first vacation as a couple together. We had gotten a condo down in Myrtle Beach SC (with my mom! haha) and were spending a lot of time as beach bums, but that morning, Mom had gotten a call or something that there was something going on and to put on CNN. We spent the entire day watching the events unfold. I remember watching “The Boy in the Window” being rescued and the kids streaming out of the building to safety. I remembered Cassie Bernall’s story of martyrdom, I remembered the Trench Coat Mafia, and the names of the killers, Eric and Dylan. I remembered one teacher had been killed. Other than that, I didn’t remember a whole lot.

The book reads like a novel. It is so interesting. Cullen is considered one of the foremost journalism experts on what happened at Columbine and he used his considerable research to write a book that covers Eric Harris’s detailed planning and psychopathy, as well as Dylan Klebold’s suicidal depression and dependence on Eric. Cullen read through the boys’ journals and watched their tapes, interviewed witnesses and family members of the victims, and meticulously detailed everything to write a book so gripping and compelling that I was reading it straight through for several days in whatever bits and pieces I could. If I could read a paragraph, I literally would take the opportunity to do so.

Most of what I thought I knew about Columbine turned out to be false. Harris and Klebold weren’t a couple of losers who hatched a hare-brained scheme to get back at the jocks at school. They weren’t members of a goth gang of kids. Cassie Bernall was never asked if she believed in God by the killers nor did she profess her faith before she was shot. I was so happy to read about The Boy in the Window (Patrick Ireland) and other survivors and hear about their recoveries and what happened to many of them. It was interesting to hear about how families of those killed dealt with their grief in constructive and destructive ways.

Additionally, what went on after the massacre took place may shock you as much as what went on before and during. This was a great book and Michael and I talked a lot about it while I was reading. Oddly enough, he and I were married on the anniversary of the Columbine attack, 3 years later. Neither of us remembered that it had occurred that day when we were planning our wedding and were reminded after setting the planning wheels in motion.

5 Stars on GoodReads.com Highly recommended! This also counts towards my “What’s In a Name?” Challenge total, as a title with a plant name in it. Columbine is Colorado’s state flower, and as you can see, it is a beautiful plant.

Moloka’i

2010-09-16T19:42:00.001-07:00

It’s been a while since I did a book review. This is for two reasons.

I haven’t felt like reading much.
I’ve had a book hanging over my head for book club that I Did. Not. Want. To. Read.

Every year when the calendar ticks over on a book club year, I make a solemn vow that I will read every single book. And every year I fail miserably. Someone always picks a book about a topic that does not interest me, and this year was no different with 2 books focused on Asia.

Then Melissa joins the book club and due to her attendance record in her early membership and someone else dropping out, I let her pick the September book. And she chose Moloka’i by Alan Brennert. She chose this based on the fact that Lesley liked the book so well and blogged about it in 2009. She seems to like the books that Lesley reads and she spends a lot of time not liking the books that I like to read. This is hilarious. Lesley and Melissa are both two of the best friends a girl could ask for, and neither one of them has any taste in literature. Haha I say this because I hate everything either one of them loves. It’s a wonder we’re friends.

So when I found out that Melissa chose it due to Lesley’s glowing review, I immediately knew I was going to hate it. I went to Lesley’s blog and read her review and thought, “Well, crap.” And reading a summary of the book induced similar thoughts. Because, a) I have no interest in the history of Hawai’i and b) sweeping epic novels of any sort of history just turn me off almost immediately. That’s why I’ve been unsuccessfully attempting to read Gone With the Wind for 3 years now. Moloka’i spans something like 70+ years.

Still, I went over to a local bookstore and picked up a copy when a search of my local library proved fruitless and the list on Paperback Swap wasn’t getting any shorter. I figured I could always swap it for something else. I read the first several chapters in early August and then put it aside. There was something about it that was already way too sad and I couldn’t bear the thought of reading about Rachel being torn from her family and forced to live in a colony far away from the people she loved.

Before I get any further ahead of myself, Moloka’i is the story of Rachel Kalama, a 7-year-old living in Hawai’i with her mother, sister, and two brothers. Her father is a sailor and is away from home for months at a time, but is a devoted family man. Hansen’s Disease (commonly known as leprosy) has broken out in Hawai’i at the same time the government is being deposed, and young Rachel contracts the disease. She is found out as being a leper and sent off to the leper colony at Moloka’i, far from her family and home and beloved father. The book is a testament to Rachel’s strength from the beginning to the end of her life, as I say from age 7 to well into her 70’s.

On Sunday, with book club looming on Monday, I decided to re-visit Moloka’i. I wanted to at least give it an honest effort. As I first began to read, I was totally overwhelmed with sadness. I literally cried every 2 or 3 pages. But I was also increasingly captivated by Rachel’s story. I can’t tell you why exactly. As I went along, my tears dried up, and in fact, I became almost numb to the death and destruction that was apparently commonplace in a leper colony. Even when my favorite character, Henry, dies later on in the book (I’m really not giving anything away, given the span of time the book covers and the subject matter, you can bet most people will be dead by the time you close the back cover), I felt strangely removed from the grief I felt early on in the book. I started to think maybe something was wrong with me.

Anyway, I didn’t get the last 70 pages read in time for book club. We had an amazing meeting, literally laughing and crying together, renaming the club B*tches with Books, and just had one of those magical meetings I will remember for a long time. As member Lauren put it, “There was definitely something in the air tonight.” But when I got home, I was more determined than ever to finish Moloka’i. I picked up in bits and pieces what happened at the end, but in fact, I didn’t feel like the discussion ruined anything for me. I still felt pretty surprised by what went on. And when I read the Endnote, the floodgates opened, and I had myself a good cry.

Moloka’i is, God strike me dead, an amazing book that Lesley may have been right about. Hey, it was bound to happen sooner or later!!! I did tend to skim the Hawai'ian folk lore sections and the mythology, but I loved reading the character’s reactions to modern inventions like airplanes and movies when they were brought to Moloka’i. This was a great book and I highly recommend it. Just have a box of tissues handy at the beginning and the end. Five Stars on GoodReads.com

Book Challenges:

This book counts as a “Bad Blogger” book for the Twenty-Ten Challenge and as my Place Name book for the What's In a Name challenge. I need to read 2 more for WIAN? and 5 more for Twenty-Ten. Woo hoo!

Ready for a Break

2010-09-03T18:50:00.001-07:00

This past two months has been tiring with all the business going on with my arm, but the past several weeks have been a nightmare of activity!!!

Tonight, I am sitting in the basement coloring in price tags so they’re the correct color for the upcoming consignment sale at which I plan to sell of a bunch of baby clothes that either got dumped here in May or else were Leah’s. So I spent last night sorting clothes and today Cindy came over and we re-sorted and tagged most of it. Since she’s left, I’ve gotten all but the 0-3 month clothes tagged and bagged. Which means as soon as I think I’m done, I’ll find stuff I missed.

This week we had a lot of appointments. Penny had 2 events at school plus a meeting with her AFS liaison, and I had 3 medical appointments for my arm. After my last orthopedist appointment on Thursday, I noticed Leah had developed some sort of rash around her mouth and wound up taking her to the doctor. Fortunately, she is fine and has nothing more than a bad cold. Unfortunately, she has shared the cold with her big sister, so now both girls are miserable and stuck in bed. Happily, on my own health front, I have completed physical therapy successfully (and made a new friend in the process!) and have been discharged from the orthopedist. I am allowed to lift up to 30 pounds and drive again (little did they know!). The risk of re-dislocating my elbow is slim to none. It would have to be another gross act of stupidity on my part. So that’s a huge relief to know, although I am not terribly graceful so it’s possible I could do something else idiotic at any moment!

All this week, The Chief has been taking a class up at Quantico. He has had to go in early, which means he has had to take the train, which means I’ve had to get up early to drive over there. I thought today would be the last day, but unfortunately for me, his regular driver will be on a much-deserved vacation until Wednesday, so Tuesday, which is Penny’s first day of school and Leah’s first day of school (I’ve signed her up for Toddlin’ Time, a local music and exercise Mommy N Me program here in town), I also have to squeeze in a ride to and from the train station.

Housekeeping, needless to say, has fallen by the wayside. I managed to get the rabbit cleaned out this week and I cleaned out the fridge. Other than that: nothing. Which means I have a lot of catching up I need to do.

Recently, a link to The Introvert's Corner appeared on a new friend’s Facebook page. I read over a lot of it, and really related to the idea that my energy comes from internally, meaning I need time to myself to recharge my batteries and be the best me I can be. Keeping up with my family has not afforded me much opportunity to do so! I admit, I am loving every minute of having Penny here, and I do think I’m going to feel a little bit (ok, a lot bit) lost come Tuesday when she boards the big yellow school bus and heads off to school. But I am looking forward to getting Leah back on a schedule that allows me to have an hour or two each day to myself. I am exhausted.

It’s funny, but all this has turned my thoughts towards family and expansion. I have 3 friends right now who are pregnant and expecting early next year. 2 of them already have young children at home, and 2 of their children are not much older than Leah is. And I’ll be honest, there is nothing in this world that could entice me right now to take on a newborn. I think, “My God, you must be crazy!” Leah is at a stage right now where she does not give a damn about toys or TV. There are 3 things in the world that make her happy: running through the house in her shoes, playing with buckets of water on the back porch, and taking walks around the neighborhood. Period. The idea that I could go back to getting up every 2 hours with a newborn and then have to chase around an extremely active toddler all day appeals to me not one bit.

Not to mention the fact that The Chief has been busily applying for jobs in the DC area and informed me that if he gets one, I’ll have to take him to the train every morning. Thus did I immediately think of Steve Martin in the movie Parenthood when he utters the phrase, “My whole life is have to”.

My neighbor Lisa and I were walking today with the kids and talking about how everyone is asking about the long weekend and who’s doing what, and how every day and every weekend is the exact same to us, and what would we even dream of doing with a 3 day weekend. I would check into a hotel on a beach, someplace warm and sunny. In the morning, I’d get up and have my nice continental breakfast, go change into a swimsuit and shorts, grab a book, sit by the water and pretend to read while I actually slept for about 3 hours, during which time someone else would clean up my living space. Then I’d get up and have a nice lunch somewhere nearby that I didn’t have to drive to, head back to my newly clean room and fall asleep for another 4 or 5 hours, get up, walk somewhere else for dinner, head down to the beach, call a friend or family member, and then go up and sleep some more. I would probably feel incredibly guilty the entire time, but I’d do it.

Anyway, I think all this fatigue and chasing and food in my hair and the actual work of parenting, which you don’t really believe in until your baby is here, has helped assuage some of my ongoing feelings of grief over our infertility. Or at least I no longer think “WHYYYYYYYYYYYY!?!?!?!” when I hear someone else is expecting. I think, “Sucker!” :-D But I would not trade either my toddler or my teen for all the tea in China. I love them both dearly.

So now I am going back up to the living room to finish sorting and tagging and then will hit the hay. Tomorrow is another weigh in and the farmers market and then I might just put The Chief in charge while I take a long nap. Have I always had this history of biting off more than I can chew, but managing to get it done anyway? Don’t answer that! :-D

Slow Updates

2010-08-24T19:41:00.001-07:00

There hasn’t been much to blog about lately, but I’ve been deleting blogs if they haven’t been updated, so I guess I should update mine…

Let’s see. Of course the big news is that I am now parenting a teen and a toddler. I have not had a whole lot of teenager trouble yet. Every day, we find Penny more and more fun and enjoyable. She has blossomed in our home and her personality is shining through more and more.

I turned 35 yesterday. I felt like I should sit down and think about what I’d like to accomplish this coming year, but nothing comes to mind. Either I have no goals or I have no life or I have no vision. I’m not sure. Most of my focus these days is on getting through the day I am living.

Leah is in a very challenging phase. She wants to be the total center of attention, she is teething (molar number 3 popped through the other day), and she does not yet know how to entertain herself for so much as 2 minutes. All the structure and order I had pre-elbow is out the window. We had a nice routine going. Now, however, chaos reigns. I’m too tired to fight it. As soon as we get Penny off to school in 2 weeks, I’ll be back in charge and I will hopefully get back into some sort of routine. Next Monday there is an open house at a place called Toddlin’ Time here in Old Town, and I am going with my neighbor. We are both planning to enroll our kids in the once weekly classes, providing it looks like something they will enjoy. I think Leah will enjoy having an hour of exercise and music and fun time with Mom, and it will get her used to being around other kids in a structured environment. This time next year, I plan to have her preparing for part time day care/pre-school type of a thing, two days per week. Everyone will take her once she is 2 1/2, and I think it’s important that she go and socialize and learn, especially in the absence of siblings. She is pretty easy going, but she is still fairly young, so maybe she’ll be a little more Leah-centric and mean about it in a few months. I hope not. All she is right now is fun and funny. Or at least, that’s my opinion of her as her mother!

I haven’t done much reading lately. I need to read Molokai and soon, but I can’t really get into it. It’s already too heart wrenching and I’m only to the part where Rachel’s sores are developing. The idea of a little girl being ripped from her family is killing me, as is the slow build up of the story.

So that’s about it. I’ll update more later as I think of things to talk about! :-) I want to keep it interesting!

The People of Wal-Mart

2010-08-07T20:38:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, I ventured out to Wal-Mart for a little bit. I seem to be spending a lot of time over there because it is close to the house, so I feel safe driving there, it is big, and there are lots of things that Leah likes to look at there (especially the fish).

We were checking out so we could bring home dinner to The General, and I was trying to keep Leah entertained, as she was attempting to stand up in the cart and was squealing. The lady ahead of me had loaded her stuff onto the belt and her two sons were bagging on the other end. She was kind of staring at me, but frankly between the brace and the daughter-of-a-different-color, I’ve gotten used to people staring at me and I tend to ignore it. But this lady decided to talk to me.

“What’s that thing on your arm?” she asked. Now, I have had a bunch of kids ask me this at the play park, but not too many adults. So I explained that I had dislocated my elbow and that the brace was to keep my elbow from coming back apart. She said that she had suffered a serious elbow injury several years ago and she knew what a pain in the butt it was to deal with. And then she said, “So, we are going to help you out.”

I really didn’t know what she meant exactly, but she started by saying that she would put our goodies up on the belt. I thanked her profusely. Once she had everything up on the belt, she asked how I was managing, my prognosis, and how long I’d have to wear the brace. I told her I was doing better than expected and hoped to have the brace off a month early, but that it was still slow going.

She responded by telling her son to bag our stuff and make sure it got in the cart. Then she said to me, “Make sure you pay this forward someday when you have two arms.” So I assured her I would, and then she said, “Ok, my son will make sure you get your car loaded up safely.”

She left with her other son, and the one who was helping did indeed bag and put everything in the cart and get us out to the car.

I have no idea who the heck this woman was, her name, her son’s name, nothing, but I will never forget her. It was one of the nicest things that has ever happened to me.

Cleaning up the Blog Roll

2010-07-28T17:45:00.001-07:00

I plan to clean up my blog roll and side bar here in the next couple of days. If you haven’t blogged in the past month or two, I will delete your blog unless you suggest I shouldn’t! :-) I feel the need to clean things up everywhere!!!

Book Reviews

2010-07-27T16:46:00.001-07:00

I have gotten a LOT of reading done lately. I think it’s because A) I can’t sleep with this stupid brace on and B) I have happened to pick up some really compelling books as my reading selections.

I am continuing to chip away at my reading challenges. This past week, I read 2 young adult novels, both of which count towards different reading challenges, and 2 adult fiction books.

First, I read Laura Wiess’s Leftovers. I had read Laura’s book Such a Pretty Girl quite some time ago (maybe 2 years?) and loved it, so I was excited to read Leftovers. I got a copy on PBS and then I got very nervous, since people scrawled some rather uncomplimentary reviews about the ending in the inside front cover. Still, it was important that I read it since I needed a book for the What’s in a Name challenge that had a food in the title. This was my selection!

Leftovers tells the tale of Ardith and Blair, two girls trapped in families that seem to have abandoned them for totally different reasons. Ardith’s parents are aging hippies who never left the drug and alcohol scene and whose son is following in their wasted footsteps. Ardith copes by being a straight arrow, excelling in school, keeping her nose clean, all in a quest to someday become a podiatrist. Blair, meanwhile, is being overshadowed by a mother who’s career as an attorney and ambition to become a judge cause her to completely change her family’s life, abandoning home, a beloved dog, and even her marriage in search for a seat on the bench. Blair’s friendship with Ardith is a lifeline in a sea of change, until her mother attempts to even undermine that. Ardith and Blair manage to stick together in the face of a number of bad situations and survive their family crises by sticking close.

I loved reading this book. I loved how it ended and how the girls manage to resolve their family issues to their own satisfaction. Of course, it was so calculating that I was also glad neither was my daughter, but I genuinely felt for both girls and wanted both of them to succeed. The book bounces between Ardith and Blair as they both tell their story to a mutual friend. At the end you find out exactly who that person is and why they do what they did. It was really a great read, and I had a very difficult time putting it down. I gave it 4 stars on Goodreads.

The other YA book I read this month is Gabrielle Zevin’s Elsewhere. Again, several years ago, I read Zevin’s book Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac, which I greatly enjoyed. I got Elsewhere via PBS some time ago, and just put it aside as one of those things I would get there. I decided to read it as a selection for the Twenty-Ten challenge as my second Young Adult book choice (the first was Maureen Johnson’s 13 Little Blue Envelopes).

Elsewhere is the story of Lizzie, a fifteen-year-old girl who wakes up to find herself on a cruise ship, dressed in white pajamas. She discovers that she was in fact the victim of a hit and run accident on earth and has died, and the ship is taking her to “Elsewhere”, where all the dead go. In Elsewhere, she is met by her grandmother, Betty, a woman she never met, as Betty died before Lizzie was ever born. In Elsewhere, everyone ages backwards until they are again an infant, and then they are sent back to Earth to live another life.

The story chronicles Lizzie’s struggle to acclimate to life after death, missing her family and friends, coming to grips with what has happened to her, missing out on things like getting her driver’s license, and yet still learning of the opportunities to reach her potential in the afterlife.

This was another book that I had a real hard time putting down. I only gave it 3 stars on GoodReads, because I didn’t feel it was a great read, but it was definitely a good, solid read. I related to Lizzie’s struggles and could see myself making similar choices (for instance, spending a lot of time at the Observatory, where you can witness your loved ones back on Earth). There was so much to love about the characters that Lizzie encountered as well, from Thandi, her cruise ship bunk mate, a tough cookie from DC who had been shot in the head, Owen, the man of her dreams who ages backwards at a near rate that Lizzie does, and Curtis, a rock star who has died of a drug overdose and becomes a kind of guru to Lizzie when she needs guidance and advice.

Eventually, as is no surprise, Lizzie ages backwards far enough to be returned to Earth as an infant, and I shed some tears as her grandmother lovingly lets her granddaughter go. If Heaven is like Elsewhere, I suppose we could do a lot worse.

Turning to adult fiction, the first book I read was Elizabeth Berg’s Never Change. Elizabeth Berg is an author I absolutely love, but I read her books rather sparingly as I find that they tend to cause me to weep rather hysterically. I have read Talk Before Sleep exactly once, and I dare not read it again, as it just wiped me out. I figured Never Change would be similar. It follows the story of Myra Lipinsky, a visiting nurse who is suddenly assigned to care for Chip Reardon, her high school crush, who has chosen to forgo treatment for a brain tumor. Myra was a quiet and reserved student and while Chip spoke to her once, she always admired him from afar. She does not know what to make of their being thrown together, and becomes even more confused as their nurse-patient relationship develops into friendship.

Chip decides to spend much of his time reading. He wants to learn about things and spends hours in the library, hoping to cram in as much knowledge as he can before he dies, although he recognizes the futility of being able to learn everything there is to know. He and Myra discuss books and literature often. I mention this as I am going to count this book towards the BBC challenge. :-) Back earlier in the month when I had my scare with the blood clot in my arm, I spent my time reading books, and I even had the thought that if I knew it was time for me to go, I supposed I would spend my time reading my favorite books and feeling great comfort in being surrounded by stories and characters that I love. Consequently, while this book did not touch me in a way that most of Berg’s previous titles did, I cannot deny that it was a book that impacted me on that level.

This book to me felt like Berg was trying to cram in a lot of thoughts about life and death that she felt were profound and would make a good book. I thought the story of Myra emerging from her emotional cocoon into a world brightened by Chip’s friendship was a great one, and the story of Chip’s choice to end his life on his own terms was also compelling, but I could have done without the pontificating on life and death. I gave it 2 stars on Goodreads. It was Ok, but I didn’t totally love it. This also counts as a Win! Win! on The Twenty Ten Challenge, since I am counting it towards the BBC Challenge as well.

Finally, I read the book When Katie Wakes by Connie May Fowler. This is the true story of Fowler’s life lived under near constant abuse at the hands first of her mother and then of her abusive boyfriend. Fowler was a young woman living in Florida and working as a bartender at a Bennigan’s after graduating with a degree in English. She lives in near constant fear after meeting the man at her bar. He talks her into the idea that only he can help her meet her potential as a writer, and that together they can take over the world and write amazing things together.

In fact, the man physically and mentally abuses Connie for years. He drains her of her finances, what little self esteem she had, and constantly has her in fear for her life. What keeps her sane is the love of her dog, Katie, and her emerging career working for a magazine. She adopts Katie as a wormy and neglected puppy, and brings her home, against the wishes of the man she is with (he is never given a name, although often she writes as if she is speaking to him directly “You don’t come home” etc). One night when the man gets particularly violent with her, Connie barricades herself in her bedroom with Katie, and they listen in terror while this man rages until he finally falls asleep. That night, Connie makes the decision to leave him “when Katie wakes” up.

I learned so much from reading this book. Often those of us who have not been in such a situation ask, “Why doesn’t she just leave him?” but the cycle is so much more complex than that. I appreciated Fowler’s bravery in sharing her story so that others may find the courage to leave or that they may understand and perhaps help those attempting to leave as well.

I am also going to count this book towards the BBC Challenge, as Connie writes of her love of books and writing and how that helped her through many difficult times with this man. I was inspired to think of the books that have helped me through challenges in life, and I was able to name quite a few. I have spent much of my current convalescence deeply enthralled by these books and others. Reading is great escapism for those of us who occasionally need it! I am also counting it as a charity book for the TwentyTen Challenge, as I picked this up in a library’s used book store. And four stars on GoodReads, although I could probably have easily given it 5.

So, if you’re keeping track of my reading challenges, here’s my latest tally on the Twenty-Ten Challenge:

Young Adult:
13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnston
Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin

TBR:
Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum

New in 2010:
Sizzling Sixteen by Janet Evanovich

Shiny and New:
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
Someday My Prince Will Come by Jerramy Fine

Bad Bloggers
(None yet)

Charity
When Katie Wakes by Connie May Fowler

Older Than You:
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susanne

Win! Win!
Secrets from the Vinyl Café by Stuart McLean
Never Change by Elizabeth Berg

“Who Are You Again?”
Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Riegler
The Leisure Seeker by Michael Zadoorian

Up to You!
Crackhouse by Terry Williams
Dear Diary by Lesley Arfin

14/20 down!

BBC Challenge:

Ruined by Reading (Lynne Sharon Schwartz)
Confessions of a Jane Austin Addict and Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict (both by Laurie Viera Riegler)
Places I Never Meant to Be (Judy Blume, Editor)
When Katie Wakes (Connie May Fowler)
Never Change (Elizabeth Berg)

At six books, I am officially a Lit Lover. I don’t know if I will make it to Bibliomaniac, but I am still hopeful!

What’s In A Name Challenge

Body of Water: Your Oasis on Flame Lake (Lorna Landvik)
Food: Leftovers (Laura Wiess)
Music: Secrets from the Vinyl Cafe (Stuart McLean)
Place Name:
Plant:
Title:

Three books to go!!

I am abandoning ship on the British authors challenge, as I haven’t managed a single one yet. C’est la vie! Life gets in the way!

I have only managed to read 28 books total this year, and since I read 4 of them in the past 2 weeks, that’s kind of scary!!! But I’m plugging away and we’ll see what happens. I’m not exactly sitting on my rear end!

Exchange Student Blogging

2010-07-19T12:41:00.000-07:00

AFS has suggested that host families and exchange students both blog about their year together. I've decided to do it. Since I've fallen apart on the weight loss blog (although still going!) and the 80 Plates blog (still dreaming about finishing it!), I think it will be fun and interesting for people to read our experience with our Thai student.

I'm trying to think of a catchy title. I wanted to sneak in the word Thai somehow.

All of I've thought of thus far are:

The Thais that Bind
Family Thai(s)
Thai and Dry

Not ideal. Not in the least. Haha

Anyone out there have any suggestions?

Also, if anyone out there is interested in hosting, AFS is desperately seeking families for 1200 students arriving in less than a month. AFS is an awesome organization with lots of family and student support. There is no fee to host, only that you must be willing to provide the student a bed (they may share a room with a same sex sibling) and meals, and to include them 100% as a member of your family. AFS provides health insurance and the students come with their own spending money for school activities, etc. Go to www.afsusa.org to fill out an interest indicator.

Two Book Reviews

2010-07-16T16:42:00.001-07:00

I have read more this week than I’ve read in a good while. I’m still reading! It has been a great way to keep my mind off things going on with my health and whatnot. Consequently, I have completed two more challenge books.

The first book is for the Twenty Ten Challenge’s New in 2010 category. I was so excited to find out Janet Evanovich had a new book coming out and when I saw Sizzling Sixteen at Target for 30% off, I had to have it. I was really excited to see what would happen to Vinnie (as the casting news rolls in from the movie, I keep hoping and praying they get Steve Buscemi to be Vinnie—he’d be PERFECT), and to of course get more of the Ranger/Morelli love triangle.

While I am of the opinion that the book itself was fine and the story moved along nicely and contained a decent mystery, it lacked something quintessentially Plum for me. I didn’t laugh out loud. I am so bummed that Lula and Tank seem to have completely forgotten the other one exists. Even Mooner’s entrance, which is usually enough to get any of the Plum books going, didn’t do a thing for me. I read through it in less than 2 days and enjoyed it well enough, but I just didn’t love it. 3 Stars on GoodReads, and here’s hoping #17 delivers. I am presently working on the new Miss Julia book by Ann Ross, but it seems to have gotten misplaced by someone who has been in or out cleaning the house at some point or other in the past 2 1/2 weeks. I know where the cover is, and that’s as good as it gets. I will find it, however.

On the other hand, I was thrilled to receive an email from Paperback Swap (PBS) that a copy of Stuart McLean’s Secrets from the Vinyl Cafe was winging its way towards me. The Vinyl Cafe books have become beloved favorites of mine, right up there with Philip Gulley’s Harmony. This edition of stories was no exception. From the hilarious illustrations on the covers (inside and out), to the fun cartoon strips inside, to the many stories included, Secrets from the Vinyl Cafe had me absolutely weeping with the first story about Dave’s mom and laughing out loud when 11-year-old Sam thinks his mother has become a shoplifter and he is the only one in his family who is walking the straight line.

Dave, the owner of the Vinyl Cafe, is a kind of Everyman who gets himself into trouble for doing the craziest things. He always has good intentions, but things always go terribly wrong. I love Dave as a character most of all.

But Dave’s family is not the only one showcased in the book. Many beloved characters from previous books make an appearance here as well. Carl of the Breadstarter, Kenny Wong of the Scottish Meatpie restaurant, and more all show up to lend hilarity and gravitas as warranted. I gave this one 5 Stars for evoking sheer joy and emotion from this reader. If you haven’t read this one, you surely should.

As for the reading challenges, I am counting this one towards the What's In a Name 3 challenge as a title with a musical term in it. Vinyl refers to vinyl records, which Dave sells in his Vinyl Cafe. I’m also counting it in the Twenty-Ten Challenge’s Win Win section for a book I used to complete another challenge! I’m whipping right along again. :-) Let’s hope I can keep some momentum going.

The Saga of the Blood Clot

2010-07-15T16:34:00.001-07:00

Ok, so this whole blood clot thing has been a nightmare! Seriously, yesterday, I was mentally composing my will and letters to my loved ones on the off-chance that something horrible was going to happen. I am very pessimistic about my health in general, so it was quite upsetting to find out what was going on and then not get any answers for 3 days.

I first discovered the clot last weekend. I was taking the FrankenBrace off and looking at the bruising, which has faded to a lovely yellow, and the swelling, which is significantly decreased from where it was, when I noticed a weird lump in my arm. At first, I figured it was just from where the two halves of the brace come together—maybe my arm was getting pinched or something—but it was rock hard and extremely painful to the touch. Then I started thinking that maybe all the muscles I had messed up were all kind of curled up in there like a ball of rubber bands. This did not especially cheer me since I figured if that was the case, they’d probably all die and I’d lose my arm. I figured I’d be the first person in history to fall off a chair and require an amputation (see? Pessimism!)

I had Michael feel it, and we made the joint decision to call the doctor on Monday. I have still been sleeping A LOT, so when I woke up Monday afternoon, I put in a call to the ortho clinic first thing and they said Joe would call me back in a bit. Joe didn’t, but the receptionist did and said that he wanted to see me first thing in the morning, was 8:50 OK? Ok, now I’m all in a fluster about what this could possibly be, and it’s clearly something awful since they want to see me right away.

We got to the clinic early, and Joe messed with the brace some and asked me how I was managing with it (“The word ‘hate’ comes to mind, Joe. Never before have I blown $300 on something I have hated as much as this brace".”). Then I showed him how the spot was right were the two parts of the brace came together and he felt around and said, “That’s a blood clot. We need an ultrasound.”

Immediately images flooded my head of death and dismemberment. All I could think of was of the clot breaking up and going to my heart. I’ve since learned lungs and stroke are likely victims too, even more fun things to worry about! So the nurse came in and asked when they could schedule it and I said any damned time they liked, let’s get it done! I gave her my cell phone number and we left.

And waited. She didn’t call for several hours. To the point that I said to Sherry that I though I must have given them the wrong phone number and I called the clinic back and gave them my number again (these people are going to hate me!). The nurse called back and told me that they would see me for the ultrasound at 6pm in Lee’s Hill. I got Sherry to agree to come back and watch Leah since Victoria had choir practice, and then my neighbor Jack agreed to drive me down to the imaging center.

The ultrasound itself was really no big deal other than to someone who is extremely ticklish like I am, it was torture attempting to keep still. It took a while, maybe 30 minutes or so, but the tech was very nice and pointed out the veins and crap on the monitor. Proof that I have them and all :-) Then I started getting concerned that he hadn’t looked at the clot, so when I sat up, I showed him where it was in case he had forgotten anything. He politely pushed me out of the room, saying the doctor would send his report over to the clinic and that would be that.

So I waited and waited, praying. Seriously, I was sure this was the end. I played with Leah as much as I was able and then plucked out my favorite books and ice cream and read and tried to keep calm. My mother, intercepting my tearful phone calls, can attest to the fact I was largely unsuccessful. I started planning cleaning some things out so my crap would be easier to get rid of, thinking about how Michael would manage with Leah, being in a deep despair that she would never remember me and what I should leave behind for her (video, letter, etc). I mean, I was in a full blown panic.

Finally, I couldn’t take it any more and called over to the clinic to get the word. No word, since Joe was gone for the day, but the nurse assured me he’d call in the morning. Another night’s restless sleep full of handwringing, although I found a killer app on my iPod called Chop Sushi. I think it’s free and it is totally addicting!!! Also, for 99 cents, you can do worse than Cake Doodler, especially if you like to do cake decorating! This morning I was downstairs with Leah when Sherry arrived and she kept me good company until about 9:30 when fatigue from being up at 4:00 overtook me. I went upstairs and about 15 minutes later, Joe called and said the clot was not in my veins, it was in the soft tissue of my arm and I just needed to take anti-inflammatories and ice it. He asked about my pain, and for some reason, today my arm is KILLING me, so I told him about that and he gave me some advice about that as well. I mean, we are talking about I was considering taking a Vicodin, even though I haven’t taken one in a week.

I called my mom and dad and sister and texted everyone and Facebooked the good news. I felt like Scrooge waking up on Christmas morning, “I will keep the spirit of Christmas in my heart always!” I was just elated. It was such a relief, I can’t even describe how happy I am still, just to be alive. I felt like a ticking time bomb for a while there.

Just as I was settling in, Sherry hollered up to me that Leah was walking, so I hightailed it downstairs and watched her take 3 steps in a row. I got all teary eyed all over again! Then I took some video of the knee bounce and then went back upstairs. I fell asleep around 11:00 and didn’t wake up till 3:15, by which point Victoria was back and taking Leah out to swim in the pool.

I am so appreciative of everyone’s support and well wishes and prayers. I am so glad that God has decided I have some more living to do!!! :-) Life is beautiful… I’m going to go sit with my hubby now.

How Can I Help?

2010-07-06T20:34:00.001-07:00

I have been really touched by the number of people expressing their desire to help us out during my convalescence. We have been so appreciative!

Right now we are in pretty good shape, truthfully. My dad is keeping our bellies full and keeping me on the road as needed. I am in a panic about next week, however!!! My dad is going home on the 11th or 12th and will not be back till the following Sunday or Monday.

Right now, my list of can’t’s is quite long. I can’t drive. I can’t open jars and other containers. I can’t change diapers. I can’t lift Leah in and out of her bed or high chair or get her dressed. I can’t get myself dressed. Cooking takes forever. And I’m not even doing serious cooking. But I attempted to chop up onions tonight and nearly removed my thumb! Simple tasks either take forever or are impossible.

The other thing is that I am in such pain and so worn out that I am basically sleeping 4-6 hours per day. It is really the only effective pain relief I get. We were laughing today, I had to fill out the paperwork for PT and the question was “What positions aggravate your pain?” I wrote, “Standing, sitting, or laying down.” That basically covers it.

I am learning more and more how to do things each day. I have managed to change Leah’s diaper once so far. I have a few plans in place as far as getting Leah’s bottles ready in advance so that I don’t have to mess with the tops and stuff—Michael will have to help me unscrew and wash them at night. I am able to grill, so we will have that available.

As I think I mentioned, the young lady out back is available to babysit in the afternoons, but not in the mornings, so if anyone has a morning they can sacrifice even once just to help me get Leah up and changed and downstairs safely, that would be a huge help.

I will go to PT for the first time on Friday and will find out then how often I need to go weekly. Next week I will need a ride to all my PT sessions. I will be trying to make them in the afternoon when I have the babysitter so that it is literally me hopping in your car and going to PT, which is less than 2 miles certainly and probably only a mile from my house in the Chatham Square Office Park. I can’t guarantee they’ll have afternoon availability but I am going to try. You can either wait or come back for me depending on what’s easiest (there’s a McDonald’s with a playplace right next door). I am told that PT on a dislocated elbow is especially grueling, so I am very nervous about the process and about coming home to my very active little one afterwards, but it sounds like I might only go twice a week to start. We’ll just have to see what’s in store!

Amanda set up a meal schedule for people to bring us meals. If you are able to have a pizza or subs or Chinese delivered, even if you can’t bring a home cooked meal yourself, it will be a huge help. Visit www.takethemameal.com and do a search for “Mike and Susan” in the last name box with a password of 0408. You can pick a day to bring us dinner or have it delivered to us. We REALLY appreciate those who have signed up and/or brought us something already.

Leah has a doctor’s appointment on Tuesday, July 13 at 10AM (I think—I need to confirm that!) over near Mary Washington Hospital. We need transportation to and from the appointment. She will be getting shots, so beware :) We can take my car or yours, depending on what’s easiest.

Finally, we just need someone to call in case of emergencies—we ran out of Leah’s milk, we need to get a prescription, the house is on fire, that kind of thing. We are going to stock up on groceries and hopefully make it through with whatever we can, plus whatever help we are offered. We really appreciate it very much!

I hope I don’t sound like I’m begging or demanding. So many people have asked that I just thought it would be easier to make a central list. Again, Mike, my dad, and I all appreciate the love and support we’ve already been given, and i don’t know how to say thank you enough!!! Thanks for reading and thanks in advance if you offer to help with our further needs.

Elbow of Doom…

2010-07-05T19:47:00.001-07:00

Ok, so here’s how it all went down…

This past weekend was tremendously busy. We had tons of people over to help wire up the general’s office, move furniture, put Penny’s furniture together, etc. I mean, we were hopping! Trips to Home Depot, running around to find tools, calling neighbors, kids running, it was a scene!

By Monday, all the furniture was where it needed to be, the computers were back up and running, and I had had quite enough of painting for a while. So my neighbor called around 9:30 to see if I wanted to take the kids over to the pool and to have a picnic. I thought that sounded like a great idea. When we hung up, I decided that it would really make me happy to come home and have all of my part of the chores done, meaning I could just hang up The General’s flag, posters, awards, pictures, etc. and be done with it. Unfortunately, I didn’t know where the step ladder had gotten to. It hadn’t been put away, it wasn’t in the office or any of the rooms it had been used in. I was feeling impatient, though, so I decided to just go ahead and use The General’s office chair. You know, the one that tilts. And swivels.

I grabbed my staple gun and the big US flag and climbed up there. The first staple, no problem. Leah thought this looked like great fun, so she sat right under the chair to watch. I started lining up the flag for the second staple, and something went wrong. The chair tilted and swiveled at the same time, and I just remember thinking, “don’t land on the baby” a split second before I mercifully crashed to the floor and avoided her.

Pain rocketed through my arm and Leah started screaming. I sat up and I knew I was in trouble. I could not see the bottom half of my arm at all. From my elbow on, it was gone. I pulled my shoulder around and my arm flopped into sight, hanging loose like a floppy noodle. I knew I had to get the phone from up on the desk, but i thought I had broken my arm. Still, I leaned on the arm anyway, and it must have snapped back into place at that point. I called 911 and they said they would send over paramedics.

Unfortunately I didn’t know The General’s new number at work, so I had to go find my cell phone, and when I dialed it went straight to voice mail. I left him a tearful message, hung up, and called Melissa and told her I needed help. She said she’d be right down to get Leah and would meet us at the hospital. In an attempt to keep calm, I tried to call Lisa back and my mom, but then my cell rang and it was The General. He told me he had called Lisa and she was coming to get Leah. He was getting a ride and would meet me at the hospital as well. I sat down in the living room and pretty soon a fire truck roared up. I thought, “No way in hell am I riding to the hospital on top of a fire truck.” Lisa roars in, the ambulance right behind her, and I’m yelling to the firemen to come in while Lisa is screaming to them that the back door is always open and pulling her son, clad only in a diaper, to get Leah.

Somehow, the paramedics had been informed that I had ripped my arm off, which is why they sent the fire truck, apparently. The first fireman in was a left arm amputee, and that’s when I really started flipping out. No sooner had Lisa gotten in than they stood me up and walked me out to the stretcher and loaded me into the ambulance. I was hyperventilating and they kept asking me the same questions over and over and telling me to calm down, which I couldn’t. Finally they decide to run an IV, which given my fear of needles was not going to go well. The EMT kept telling me not to hold my breath, why was I so upset, but until she injected the morphine and strapped an oxygen mask to my face, I could not settle down.

Melissa got to the hospital no more than 10 minutes after I did and sat with me before and after the x-rays. It got to the point that she could answer the questions as well as I could. The answers were basically:

1. No, I cannot possibly be pregnant.
2. My birthday is 8.23.xx
3. I fell off a chair.

The General arrived and then Dr. S came in. He offered me some more pain meds, so I just asked for Tylenol. Of course, just like with my leg, the meds never came until the bitter end. Finally Dr. S came back and told me the x-rays were clear and I had probably just sprained it. Here’s 20 Vicodin, you’ll be better in a week.

Now I knew damned good and well I hadn’t just sprained it, so I told Melissa to get me an appointment with Sunshine. She got on her iPhone and found OSC but her phone wouldn’t dial out, so she used The General’s phone and made the call. They weren’t able to see me till Wednesday, but we got an appointment with Joe Gowaty, who had helped me with my knee a couple of years ago, so I was happy with that.

I told Melissa I wanted some chicken mcnuggets, so we went through discharge, she dropped me home, and she and Mike headed out to get the Vicodin and the mcnuggets. Lisa was upstairs with the little ones, so i went up there and let her know I was home. She helped me into bed, and Leah snuggled right up to me and wouldn’t leave my side. Daniel kept running around entertaining us and Melissa arrived with my nuggets. I fed the fries to the babies and then Melissa and Mike got back with the meds, so Lisa felt free to go home. I popped a couple pills and Melissa offered to take Leah home with her for the night, so I agreed. I talked to both my parents, and my dad said he’d be down the next day, so Melissa said she’d keep Leah till Dad got here. I passed out cold.

I remember very little about the next couple of days. I remember Melissa coming back and my dad arriving and all of us eating Chinese food. Wednesday morning, we dropped Leah off with Lisa and went to see Joe. He had reviewed the x-rays and agreed that I hadn’t broken anything but listened while I explained exactly what happened and said it sounded like a dislocation, but that he’d need an MRI to be sure. He also didn’t like the sling from the ER and prescribed a hinged elbow brace. OSC made the appointment for the MRI that afternoon, and Dad and I went and got Leah and did the grocery shopping. Melissa came down again to watch Leah so we could do the tests and we headed to the hospital.

Apart from the pain of getting my arm up over my head, the MRI wasn’t bad. It was very noisy, but not bad. When I got out, we decided to go see about the brace. The pharmacy at the hospital directed us to Homecare America, which directed us to an orthotics fitter in Old Town (Mobility Prosthetics and Orthotics on Caroline Street). We went and met with a guy named Donnie, who gave me the bad news that our insurance had a $300 deductible on the brace that I’d have to pay up front. I told him I would rather meet with Joe again to discuss the MRI results.

Friday I went back to Joe for a final assessment. It was bad news: every last tendon, etc. holding my elbow and thus two halves of my arm together is torn. Consequently, my elbow can dislocate itself again at any time. This is the real reason, Joe told me, that I need the hinged brace. It will hold my arm in place, giving everything a chance to heal itself. I asked if I was allowed to drive, and I am not for at least a month. If I were a professional athlete, I’d be a surgery candidate, but I am not. As such, the don’t expect I will ever gain full extension of my elbow again, but I hope to prove them wrong on that account! In about 3 months, I should be able to lose the brace.

So we went back to see Donnie, I ponied up my $300 and got my brace fitted. It is a monster of a thing, and when we went to the store afterwards, people were falling all over themselves to get out of my way!

I have done a good job keeping things in perspective. For one thing, for weeks, I have been complaining of exhaustion. I figure this is God’s way of making me take a break. We have had to cancel our planned trip to RI and I cannot even think about NYC at this point.

Secondly, my dad is here. Considering that we spent half of this year not speaking, this time together now is an extraordinary gift and chance to mend our relationship.

Third, it’s not my leg or something even more serious. Yes, the fact is that I am in constant pain. But unlike last time, I can independently get up and walk around. I can (mostly) shower without help. The things I can’t do are tough, I’m not going to lie. I would love to be able to wrap my arms around my daughter and pick her up. I’d like to put on a bra by myself! I’d like to be able to put toothpaste on my toothbrush and chop up a tomato and take the lid off the Tylenol unassisted. But in 5 days’ time, I regained the movement in my fingers. I remember I got real depressed when I broke my leg four years ago, and my buddy Joe was visiting. I was complaining to him about everything I couldn’t do and finally I said, “Why the hell did it have to be a leg? Why couldn’t it have been something else?” He replied, “Like what, your neck?” I gained perspective in an instant. I am mindful of the fact that i fell flat on my back from 6 feet in the air and all I did was dislocate my elbow. That’s pretty damned lucky.

Finally, my main concern away from Leah beimg Ok and my own health was being able to sing with my choir on Saturday night. I was devastated by the possibility that I might not get to perform. I deliberately took fewer pain medications and slept during the day to conserve energy, but I got to sing with that choir, and I sang with all my heart and a huge lump in my throat. I was so proud of myself, and I am so grateful to Dad, Mike, Melissa, Andy, Paul, and Kris for coming to share in that moment with me. Honestly, it was one of the proudest moments of my life, thank you for coming and recognizing how important it was to me. I was honored to sing for you.

So that’s where things stand. Tomorrow I will post some answers to the question I am asked most often: How can I help? I know that we will need the most help July 12-19 when my dad is up in NY. I just need to get over to the PT office first before I send up a cry for assistance. Thanks to all who have asked!!! I will have answers soon. :-)

Wow...

2010-06-25T14:54:00.000-07:00

I got this message in my email from a total stranger today:

You cannot be the person you were meant to be in this world as long as you are operating at a deficit by expending so much of your energy on a destructive person.

The idea of risking my own potential for some else is scary. I've never thought of it like that before.

A Trip Home

2010-06-21T18:39:00.001-07:00

So this past weekend we spent in Northern New York for my dad’s retirement bash. We decided to go up Wednesday night instead of Thursday night, since it is a long drive (550 miles to be exact) to only go for one day. I picked Michael up at Quantico and we got as far as Winchester before deciding to stop so that Leah could get the screeches out. We stopped in at SuperWalmart and had dinner at the McDonald’s in there, and picked up a few things we needed for the trip before getting back on the road. It turned out to be a wise decision since by the time we got back in the car, got gas, and hit I81, it was 7pm, which is Leah’s bed time. She was soon snoring softly in the back seat and we had a pretty good drive.

A voice in my head kept on telling me that I would be able to drive all the way home but I really didn’t want to entirely. Around midnight, we were in Cortland NY and I was feeling tired, so we decided to stop at a Day’s Inn. I went in and agreed to pay the rate (despite the fact they tacked on a $5 surcharge for a handicapped accessible room, which is ILLEGAL as hell). I gathered up my little family and we went into the hotel. Red flags immediately went up. There were a bunch of half-naked people loitering in the hallways and the smell of pot was hanging heavy around us. I tried the swipe card and nothing. I tried the other swipe card, and we still couldn’t get in. Leah was soaked and groggy, I was tired and pissed off, and Mike had to pee. (haha!) So I went back to the desk and asked to please have the keys reprogrammed. Went back to the room, and we still couldn’t get in.

I am ordinarily a calm person, but at 12:30, I was kinda not in the mood, you know? The potheads were milling about, the TV’s were blaring, the people in the room next door to us had posted a sign on their door that said, “This is not the hang out room tonight” which appeared to have had exactly zero effect on anyone, so I grabbed Mike, we went out to the desk, I put the keys down and said, “There is no way we are staying here.” The clerk look stunned. She asked what was wrong and I said between the noise and the drugs, we were not subjecting our infant to that nonsense. Two of the homies came ambling through at that point and she called out to them, “Hey, are you guys smoking weed in the hallway?” They replied, “Not in the hallway” and started laughing like Beavis and Butthead.

The clerk says she doesn’t know how to process our refund, so we need to call the manager in the morning (I’ve called the hotel several times now, no one seems to know anything about it, but Days Inn Corporate is about to get an earful, I can promise you). We get in the car, I clean up Leah and her seat, and we get driving again. I said to Mike that we were only about 30 miles from Syracuse, so it was no big deal to get up there and then we could try finding somewhere else to stay over. By now it was nearly 1AM. So we drive to Syracuse, and I was thinking about the money we had already paid to the hotel we didn’t stay in and the room we didn’t even get to see and I said to Mike, “Well, it’s only 2 hours home.” He starts telling me I’m crazy, but I really couldn’t see stopping at that point. It was all landmarks I knew, which was going to make the trip a lot quicker. So we just drove home. We roared in at 3AM, and I had a moment of panic in that I wasn’t sure if my dad would have left the house open or not, but lady luck smiled on me and I was able to get in. I put Leah on the guest bed for about 30 seconds while I set up her portable crib and the minute she was in that, she was stretched out and snoring. Mike and I crawled into the big guest bed and passed out. I don’t think we even said goodnight to each other. It was 3:30AM.

What seemed like seconds after I fell asleep, all hell broke loose with banging and clanging and crashing coming from the front of the house. I sit bolt upright in bed. Michael and Leah slept on undisturbed. It was 6:30AM. I knew it was my dad, who is not known for being gentle. I use the bathroom and then I decide to open the hallway door. As I do, I hear his chair fly back as he leaps to his feet and I peek around the corner to find him standing behind the dining room table, his fist locked and loaded, ready to lay me flat. It took him a second to realize who it was and then he just couldn’t believe it. It was kind of hilarious.

We had some bagels and talked for a while, then Leah got up and then Michael got up. We were all up by about 8:30. My dad still wanted to go out to Watertown to do some shopping, but I didn’t feel like getting back in the car, so we let him go. The three of us spent the morning puttering around the house, napping, and then we drove up around the lake to see what was new in town. I’m glad I do this every time I go home, since you never know what is going to change. Right now the hospital is under construction and the way it is now is not the way it looked for all the years I knew it.

We had lunch at the Hillside Diner, where Leah held court and I felt depressed that I didn’t know anyone in town any more, and then we went home and waited for my dad’s call to meet him up in Natural Bridge for ice cream.

We had a pretty low key day after that—Dad made us his famous meatloaf and mac n cheese for dinner and then he and Michael watched the Mets and the Celtics games while I took a spin through Oswegatchie and went to bed early. Friday we hung out outside most of the day. The weather up there was beautiful and I told Dad I was moving up there for a month next summer. It was so freeing to be outdoors and relaxed. We had leftovers for lunch out on the back porch and then I got some chicken marinating since I offered to make dinner (grilled chicken).

After dinner, Judy and her family showed up. I don’t recall a whole lot else of what happened other than Leah and Dottie got each other wound up and then Leah proceeded to sleep like a champ. In fact, she has slept through the night since we were up there. She’s doing an amazing job at sleeping all of a sudden!

Saturday, I was still trying to catch up on sleep. My dad’s friend Fred came over, but I missed him while I was napping. Then his friend Bob came to the door and yelled, “Where the hell is George?!” Dad and I both flew from our respective rooms like we’d been shot. (No one is too concerned about sleeping babies!) Dad grilled up some burgers and dogs for lunch and then we enjoyed our afternoon together before Dad headed to mass while we all got ready for the party.

The party itself was a lot of fun. There were a ton of my old teachers there, some of whom I hadn't seen in years. Dad gave a nice speech and a few people got up and said some really nice words about him and Bob, who is also retiring. My dear friend Amy showed up, and I hadn’t seen her in 2 years, so it was cool to catch up. My godfather, who I don’t recall seeing since I was in high school, was there. Mrs. Collins, the school librarian, who greatly influenced my love of reading and libraries was there. It was the greatest feeling.

All of a sudden, the heavens opened. We got a massive thunderstorm. There are no thunderstorms like thunderstorms in the Adirondacks. The volume and fury, just amazing. I loved it. Fortunately it also cooled it off since it was a little bit humid up there. Afterwards, Bob and his family and Amy came by the house for nachos and more celebrating. I finally went to bed at 10:30ish.

Leah started making noises around 4:30, almost as if she knew we were leaving. She really started squealing at 5:00, so we decided to get up and pack. My dad heard us and got up and by 6:05, we were back on the road, heading south. We were much earlier than planned, we didn’t plan to leave until around 7AM, but we were ready, so we pulled out. I got kinda misty-eyed leaving, but I found a few treasures to bring back with me, including a book of nursery rhymes that my favorite uncle gave me on my first Christmas. It is now safely tucked in Leah’s upper book shelves so I may share it with her, which thrills me to no end.

We decided to stop at the Wegman’s in Wilkes-Barre for lunch. We got there at 10:30. They were not serving lunch until 11:00, but Leah was a little car weary, so we decided to wait it out. We got pizza right when it came out of the oven and the girl working the pizza counter could not have been more friendly. She carried our food to the tables, got us a high chair, and even offered to get our drinks. So on the way out, we left a comment at the management desk about her superior service. I hope she gets a nice bonus or something for it. She was amazing.

We got back in the car around 11:30, got gas and Leah did just great until we hit I66 in Virginia. Then she started freaking. I pulled over on the side of the road and fixed her a bottle, but that didn’t work. She was just over it. I kept promising her we were almost home and giving her a running count of the miles. She settled down after we broke into silly songs and making faces at her. She only freaked for about 20 minutes, so we were good. We rolled into our driveway at 4:30pm. I had just enough time to unload, change Leah, fix an extra bottle for her, and hopped back in the car to go on up to choir practice.

My heart was not in it, I must confess. I swore I would leave early. I swore I would not sing. But once I got there, got through the warm ups, and started the rehearsal, I was in my element, exhausted though I was. 8:00 came very quickly, and then I hopped back in the car and roared off to the grocery store to pick up only what I needed to fix Michael’s lunch for Monday. He called and asked me to grab him some dinner since he hadn’t eaten since 11:00 that morning, so I went through McD’s and got home.

And then the wind went out of my sails. I had such a bad headache that even though I took extra strength Excedrin, it did nothing to touch it. I had gotten 3 letters from Penny and her mother, so I wanted to email them both back, which I did, but then I just went straight to bed. I felt sick I was so tired.

Leah slept through the night, thank God, and she didn’t get up till about 7 this morning. She was back in bed around 9:30 for a nap and I followed shortly thereafter at 10:00 this morning. I laid there for about 5 minutes thinking, “I’m never going to fall asleep” but lo and behold I did and slept till 12:30. Finally I felt human again. We did some grocery shopping and spent some time out in the baby pool before Michael got home and we were able to have dinner and put Leah to bed. We started reading a book together and now I am going back to bed! It was an amazing weekend, but we had to be pretty crazy to do that much driving for only a couple of days. I’m serious about staying up there for a while next summer. It’ll be nice to have some downtime after Penny leaves and to enjoy some good weather. Plus I’ll be able to actually visit with people for a while instead of 15 minutes here and there. We’ll see how next summer shapes up. If it’s anything like this summer, I haven’t got a prayer!

Barfin’ Arfin

2010-06-15T07:06:00.001-07:00

My second selection for the Twenty-Ten Book Challenge’s Up To You section was Lesley Arfin’s Dear Diary. Last year and the year before, I stumbled upon David Nadelberg’s Mortified books, which were diary entries that he had collected from random people who agreed to have them published. The Mortified series is a delicious bit of voyeurism, and I fully expected the same from Dear Diary. Lesley Arfin decided to publish bits and pieces of her diaries from when she was a pre-teen until in her early twenties. The premise was that she would try to find the people she wrote about and follow up with them after the fact to see what had gone wrong or right in their relationships. Lesley’s life was one of a self-described “Long Island JAP” (Jewish American Princess) turned heroin addict.

I was so excited to read this book and so disappointed in what it turned out to be. A few weeks ago, while browsing in Joseph Beth’s humor section, I came up on the book Look At This F*cking Hipster by Joe Mande. In the introduction, he writes that his parents would often visit him in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and his father would see people walking down the street and ask his son, “Is that a hipster?” I read the book and laughed like hell, I had no idea there was a term for the sorts of people that hipsters turn out to be (if you want to know what a hipster looks like, visit Joe’s site at http://www.latfh.com/).

While I was reading Dear Diary, I kept thinking, “Is she a hipster?” I must have sounded just like Joe’s dad. And lo and behold, I drew my own conclusions that yes, Lesley Arfin must be a hipster. Someone who is so desperate to be cool that they revel in their ironic uncoolness until people worship them.

I could say more, but I found a review on Goodreads.com that sums up pretty much everything I could possibly want to say about it. Credit where it is due, this comes from someone named Mary Maddox, who gave it one star. (I’m excerpting the review down to the most basic points that say everything I hated about the book.)

1.Because Dear Diary is the worst kind of lazy, tin-eared, hackneyed, narcissistic memoir: imagine Dave Eggers's solipsistic obsession for self-chronicling but without the interesting life or the literary chops that make his confessions compelling and readable. Instead, imagine pages from the diary of an entirely unremarkable Long Island teenager/heroin addict followed by "updates" from the entirely unremarkable near-thirty-year-old hipster hanger-on she grew up to be. Now imagine this charade dragging on for a horribly self-indulgent 232 pages. Now try not to gouge out your own eyes.

2.Because peppered lovingly throughout all 232 of these pages— along with many forced allusions to countercultural touchstones, wretchedly written paeans about Arfin’s “passion for writing,” and constant assertions of her apparently sincere belief that this “book” will “change lives”—is the casual ironic racism, sexism, and heterosexism that is a huge part of Vice culture. What’s funny about calling someone a “fag” or a “dyke” for Vice folks, as far as I can gather, is that this shocks well-intentioned, let’s-all-just-get-along type liberals, for whom they have nothing but the most virulent scorn. What Arfin fails to understand is that the average 15-year-old girl in Minnesota, or even one in Long Island, will not grasp the transgressive irony of her incessant gay-bashing and will see it only (and this is perhaps closer to Arfin’s own true motivation) as a way to be cool.

3.Because, by some miracle of astonishing arrogance, Arfin sees herself as a role model and encourages her readers to follow her life path. At the end of her “book,” Arfin opines, “I hope everyone who reads it makes as many mistakes as I did. Just remember that mistakes are only worth it if they get written down in a diary. If you’re lost at sea in your late 20s and you don’t know what to do with your life, maybe you’ll be able to convince someone to publish it.”

Ah, yes, children. She’s right. The surest route to personal fulfillment is to get addicted to heroin, compulsively record your boring, belligerently ignorant observations, and befriend some super-rich douchebags who’ll publish your tripe! But you’d also better be sure that your parents are rich enough to pay for your expensive liberal arts college, send you to rehab twice, and subsidize your kitschily decorated apartment on the lower east side!

I was far too bored to really ponder the half-assed, "J.K.—kind of!" sarcasm with which Arfin qualifies this and other more grandiose claims. I would guess that it functions to absolve her of culpability should some unfortunate teen take her seriously and end up dead in an alley. "J.K., dead dude! Didn't you get that I was being, like, totally ironic?"

Ok, fine, I didn’t excerpt a whole lot of it. But you can see the discontent this book causes. Ugh. My “Up to You!” category was substance abuse, and this is my second entry. Afrin does devote a lot of her book to describing drugs’ effects on her and her stints in rehab, so good enough. Anyway, I gave the book 2 stars, only because it was pretty readable—I wanted to see what the heck she was going to say next. However, I quickly listed the book for swap on PBS, which is where I got it from, and can’t wait to ship it off to its new home.

Thus endeth another review for the TwentyTen Book Challenge. I am sorely tempted to count this as a BBC selection as technically a diary is a book so it’s a book about a book, but I don’t want to waste a selection on this book!

Yard Sailing…

2010-06-13T06:09:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was our big yard sale. I’ve been watching a lot of “clean up your house” shows on TV since I’ve been home, and it has really inspired me to clean out the clutter myself. I had so much junk that I was able to hold a yard sale and invited several others to participate with me. Yesterday was the big day.

I always feel a bit sad when I put things out for sale, and yesterday was no exception, really. Looking at Leah’s baby things out there got me all misty-eyed and wistful. I usually feel quite confident that I’ve put the right things out, but there is always one or two things that I think, “Well, maybe I shouldn’t have done that.” Nothing has struck me yet, but I’m sure it will.

I took a chance and asked one lady who came over about her hair. She was African-American and had the most beautiful head of hair, I just loved it. Leah’s hair continues to be a mystery to me. It turns out, the woman I spoke to was an adoption social worker at Fairfax County Department of Family Services. We had the most amazing chat about adoption and hair and it was really life affirming… She gave me her card and asked me to keep in touch. I certainly shall!

After we took most of the valuable stuff back in the house, I posted our left overs on Craig’s List and Freecycle and waited for people to come grab it. However, after all the heat yesterday, there was a terrible thunderstorm in the late afternoon. Fortunately, our neighbor’s son came over and helped me get everything up on the porch just as quick as you please, and a gentleman who stopped over to pick up a few things also helped us work to get things under cover. I grabbed some blankets and trash bags and got most everything covered before the rains came.

Last night, 6 Freecyclers rolled and took probably 60% of what was out there. The main things I have left to deal with are some furniture (dining room chairs, coffee table), books, VHS tapes, and odds and ends. I’ve reposted to Freecycle this morning and we’ll see what happens. By noon, everything is going. To the dump, to Goodwill, to wherever, I’m loading it up and taking it out of here.

It feels good. I like knowing that I have made my home a lot nicer, that I’ve helped people who need it, that I’ve cleared out the clutter in more ways than one. Today, I have a metric ton of cleaning to do, getting clothes boxed up so I can consign them this fall, picking up the toys and stuff that got strewn around while a pile of babies and toddlers were running through the house while their parents were losing probably 8 pounds each in sweat alone outside, our normal dump run, and getting ready for the week ahead. It will be busy, but short, as I’m heading up to my dad’s for his retirement party this coming weekend.

But I’m proud of what I accomplished, grateful to my friends who stood by me and helped out (Thanks mucho Cindy and Jason and Manda!) and ready to tackle our next project: preparing the house for a teenager! *Cue scary music*

Just Feel Like Blogging

2010-06-09T16:06:00.001-07:00

Not a whole lot to report, but I will probably wind up making this a longer post than I expect… It has been both busy and not so busy around here lately. Leah is keeping me on my toes. She seems to be going through some kind of a growth spurt, and she is extremely crabby one second and then laughing till she pukes the next second. Can babies have manic depression? I don’t know. But if they can, she’s got it.

This past weekend was nice. My sister and her family came over on Saturday and used the baby pools and brought stuff down for the yard sale. Our back room is getting filled to capacity. I will be so glad to get rid of all this stuff, you have no idea. My friend Cindy asked me if I was getting rid of the baby stuff, and I answered yes. Of course, the question arises, what if you adopt again?

This is a question I’ve been struggling with, particularly in light of the fact that so many of the SAHM’s I hang around with seem obsessed with the question of whether or not to have another baby. It is a discussion I attempt to avoid by leaving their company if it comes up, as it still evokes a lot of painful emotions for me.

The fact of the matter is, if we were to adopt again in the future, and I’m not ruling it out, there is so much to think about. First off is timing. Michael and I both agree that we are in no rush. Leah is literally a full time job, and I feel I owe it to her 150% to be involved in her growing up. I do not feel the need to add a sibling to her life any time soon. I don’t know if there are any studies about how much time between siblings is beneficial, but I know from watching other children around me that if I were to have a baby enter the picture in a year or two, my patience would be at its breaking point. If I were in my 20’s again, that would be one thing, but I am not. Let’s face facts. I’m going to be 35 this year (GULP!). I don’t have the energy of a young mom, and I don’t have the patience either. So it seems to me that it would better to wait until Leah is in school even part time before deciding to bring another newborn home. By that time, I will be pushing 40. Does it make sense to have another small infant when I’m 40 years old? I really don’t know. I mean, don’t get me wrong, if someone were to walk up to me on the street and say, “I’m giving my baby up for adoption and you are the one person on the planet I know I must give this baby to”, I would not turn them down, not even close. But it certainly gives me pause.

We have considered doing foster care and also adopting an older child. Part of our reasoning behind attempting this exchange student business is that we will gain some experience in parenting a teen. I don’t know that I would necessarily want to adopt a teenager, but to see how I can relate to a child who is not biologically mine and is not a sweet, cuddly little infant is going to be interesting. Again, we have time to think about it, but it’s good to try things out and see what we think about various things.

We have been looking into a day care situation for Leah to enter just one day per week already. This is for several reasons. I do feel she needs to socialize with other children on a regular basis, hopefully and particularly other non-white children. She is a good little girl, but she is a little rough with other babies and I think it’s because we spend a couple hours here and there with other children and then we go home and she’s able to pretty much do whatever the heck she wants. She is also extremely attached to me. Owing to the fact that this week I was at choir practice Sunday night and book club Monday night, tonight when Michael walked in the door, Leah had a death grip around my neck and threw a tantrum when I put her down. Finally I put her up to bed. I could not cook dinner and deal with not being able to put her down. We both feel that maybe a day off for me and a day with other people on a regular basis would be a good idea. However, I don’t want to send her off any more than one day a week. Unfortunately, we haven’t found any place that will take an infant for just a day. Most places don’t start that until the infants are 2 1/2. So for now, we are soldiering through and I am enjoying my time with her very much.

Another consideration is the cost. I don’t know that it is necessarily fair to spend all that money on getting another child when I could put that same amount of money away towards Leah’s first year of college. It really sucks to have to start that far behind the eight ball. Leah is worth it, another child would be worth it, but at the same time, financial aid offices at universities don’t see “paid +$30K in adoption fees to get this kid” and then decide to give you a full scholarship.

So, we’ll see what happens down the road. For now, though, we are going to get rid of a lot of stuff, as even if we were to have another baby enter our lives, it’s not worth storing everything. And since there’s no guarantee that it’ll happen, I’m not holding onto anything “just in case”.

I finished clearing out the house and closets. All I have to clear out now is the shed. We have rented a Uhaul to transport some furniture to my sister’s and to bring her stuff down here. I am going to call the Hospice thrift shop tomorrow and schedule for them to pick up anything that is left over. Nothing is going back in the house. Period. Then finally, I’ll be able to clear out the downstairs room, paint it up, and we will be able to have everyone over to do the wiring and move the radio gear and antennas. Then Mike and I will be able to take out what’s left of the fence. Yahoo!

Being back on WW hasn’t been too bad. I lost 4.4 pounds my first week, which was great. It has been a lot easier to have Mike on board. He is having a really hard time eating all his points. We have had to even make a post-dinner McDonald’s run to get him food to round out the points. I made a string of paper clips to represent the 100 pounds I want to lose and I’ve now taken 4 off. It’s a long chain, but I’m looking forward to watching it get shorter and shorter as we go on.

We have been sending lots of emails back and forth to Penny’s mom, but Penny is a bit shy at the moment, so we haven’t heard from her much. I sent her the package that I had been working on and it should get there next week. I hope she likes everything. We made her a CD of current popular American music, and sent her a personalized license plate from Myrtle Beach. She has a very nice family indeed. I am enjoying getting my morning emails from Linda and reading about the family and what they have been doing. Penny does not feel comfortable calling us Mom and Dad, so she has decided to call us Chief and Cookies. One guess as to where that idea came from.

Next weekend, we are heading north to NY to celebrate my dad’s retirement. I feel crappy about being able to go when I was not able to go for my mom’s surgery last month, but the timing for everything just turned out how it did. I don’t expect that I will get back to NY again this summer, and I will only be up there 48 hours or so, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles. Mom and I have been busy talking about her 60th birthday party. I am looking forward to getting down there for it. We are planning on renting a party barge van and all of us (my sister and her family and us) will drive down together. After the party, I plan to take Penny to Disney World while Leah stays home with her father. That will be my Florida trip for the year. So all we have to do is figure out when to get to Rhode Island and we’re in business. I printed out next year’s school calendar. It’s going to seem weird to be back on a schedule like that again. Although it really doesn’t make a whole lot of difference in the end.

My dad’s cousin sent me a link to a bunch of old photographs. I was going through one and found one marked with my grandfather’s name. It is a picture of him when he was in Hawaii with the Navy. Can I just say that I burst into tears and cried on and off for two days? When we sang “Anchors Aweigh!” in choir practice, I totally lost it. It is nice to see him looking so young and healthy. I wonder if there are other pictures of him out there that I don’t know about.

That’s about all from here. There’s really not anything else going on. I guess that’s probably enough! :-)

House Projects Done! (For a While)

2010-06-04T08:51:00.001-07:00

Woo hoo! The house projects are mainly done now. We have had workmen in here pretty steadily for a year. Some of the work was unintentional, but a lot of what we did was what we wanted!

This time last year, our central air went on the blink. We called for repair and the old unit was leaking Freon. They refilled it, but cautioned us that if we continued to have problems, we’d need to replace the unit. Lo and behold, we came back from New Jersey and Janet Evanovich and I felt like the a/c was just not doing its job. They came back out and said we needed a new unit, or we’d be paying $300 every two weeks for new Freon. (Is that supposed to be capitalized? Microsoft says it should be!)

So the day I left to go and tend to my dad and his heart attack, we signed a contract on a new central air unit. Because of the adoption, we wound up financing the majority of the cost of it, and so we paid it off all year until this spring when we finished paying it off with our tax return. In addition to the good cool air we are getting and the slightly cheaper utility bills (only slightly), we did get to use it for our energy tax credit, which was nice.

Over the winter, I decided I couldn’t live with the lighting situation as it was any more. I was good sick and tired of constantly having to lean over the dining room table to turn the light on. I was tired of not having any lighting in our living room, save one stupid floor lamp. I was tired of the kitchen light blowing bulbs every 2 weeks. You will recall that during the blizzard in December, we had gone around to visit our neighbors and bring cookies to everyone. Well, we spent a good amount of time, probably an hour or more, with our neighbors Manfred and Bobbie. It turns out that Manfred has an electrical business with his son, Wyatt. http://accurateelectricbiz.com/ *Ding ding ding* We have a winner!!! Time to call Manfred and ask him to help us out. We set up a time for them to come in January and they came an installed 4 pot lights in the living room ceiling, correctly wired the dining room light, and replaced the kitchen ceiling fan. They did an amazing job—they even vacuumed! All for about $450, plus the cost of the fan. I am so happy to be able to flip a switch and the light comes on over the table. I haven’t changed a light bulb in the kitchen yet. And the living room light, what can I say? AMAZING! We can sit in there any time now. I love it.

Well, lo and behold, we got to thinking and the General decided Leah needed a new ceiling fan. When we also got to talking about moving the office downstairs, he really wanted to have a ceiling fan in that room as well before putting all the equipment in there. So we went ahead and hired Manfred and Wyatt to come back and put up two more ceiling fans.

Then we started on ServiceMagic.com to find out where we could get the house painted, the landscaping cleaned up, the new doors installed, and the shutters replaced. Of all those projects, the only thing I demanded be done was to have the doors replaced. We finally found companies to work with that we really liked—the only bad thing was that there were 2 people we had to turn down, both of whom I really liked. The door estimates dragged on forever. It seems doors are big business. Eventually, we cancelled 3 appointments for even more estimates. My head was swimming from sales calls and pitches, and we finally hired Window World to do the doors, which I frankly suspected we would do all along. http://www.windowworldfredericksburg.com/ They did our windows 4 years ago and did an amazing job, and they did our gutters, soffits, and downspouts 2 years ago and I loved the old guy they sent out here to work on the house. I liked their salesman too, so I was disappointed when he didn’t show up this time, but I guess he had decided it was time to retire.

We hired World of Color (http://www.worldofcolorinc.com/) to do the paint and they kicked in a 10% discount if we let them do the shutters too, and their shutter price was mid-range of what the other estimates were. We had one estimate of $400 and one of $1000, and they were at $700, but gave us a nice discount on the paint and shutters if we bundled them, which allowed us to do both projects. I was ever so happy to get rid of that crappy green paint, you have no idea! I really liked the owner of the place too, he was so friendly and we had a lot of nice chats about babies and infertility and all that stuff of all things to discuss with your house painter!

For our landscaping we hired Kinetic Resources LLC. Mainly because he was the only guy that we requested an estimate for who showed up and gave us the estimate! http://www.servicemagic.com/rated.DHLandscaping.6676090.html But I really liked Brett, the guy who came out and who did all the work, and they gave us an awesome price to really clean up the yard.

There are still so many things I’d like to do to the house, but for now, I am going to bask in the doneness of these projects. All we have left to do is have our yard sale to get rid of a bunch of stuff (June 12, by the way, and 4 families are participating, so come and buy some goodies!) and then move the bedroom and office. This should all be completed by the end of June.

For the outside, I would like to put in a nice patio out back, do some actual landscaping, and replace the driveway and front walk.

Inside, haha, where to start? I’d like to gut the kitchen and replace it with a much nicer set up, bump out the back of the house and add an actual dining room, replace all the flooring throughout the house, have all the ceilings painted, gut and replace the bathrooms, possibly add a master suite up in the crawlspace over the kitchen/living room level.

There’s time. God willing, we won’t be leaving this house any time soon. It’s a good place to call home, and getting better one TLC project at a time.

Life’s Little Moments

2010-06-03T16:56:00.001-07:00

There hasn’t been anything major really worth blogging about. I mean, there has, but stupid Facebook and microblogging has taken over, despite my vow that I would be fiercely dedicated to blogging. Ugh.

Anyway, the two major things that happened are that my mom had surgery to repair her knee from her fall back at Christmas and that my dad and I are speaking again. Mom had her stitches out today and the doctor was pleased with her progress. She starts PT for 3 weeks next week and then should be good to go.

I got real sad and lonely for my dad right before we left for Myrtle Beach, so I called him. He is happily single again and living the good life at home. Hopefully we will get up there this summer.

We are busy nearly every day. I take Leah to the play park at the mall (I don’t do heat, the summer SUCKS) and try to keep her entertained more and more. As she gets bigger and bigger and steadier and steadier, she wants to be on the go. I set up a couple of pools in our backyard and she totally loves them. We also got her birth certificate in the mail this past week, so we are nearly ready to make her a Kosior. Just have to go to Social Security to finalize the whole thing, which of course is a bit sticky since He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named works there. I’m sure we can be adults if we run into each other.

My Bosom Buddies DVD’s arrived and I have enjoyed the hell out of season 1. It is so nice to see Tom Hanks doing comedy. He and the show are still laugh out loud funny.

Today I was driving up 95 and saw an SUV with a bumper sticker that said “I miss W.” I had to restrain myself from running that person off the road.

I am more pissed than I can say about this oil spill, so I am refraining from saying anything.

The National Book Festival author list is out. There’s no one I’m interested in seeing. If I finish The Corrections by then and enjoy it, then I might go see Jonathan Franzen, but if I don’t get to it, no big deal.

Our interview form still hasn’t been turned into the head office for AFS, so we STILL cannot contact Penny. It’s extremely frustrating that it’s been nearly 2 weeks that one stupid form has been held up. Everything else is done. We’ll send out another request in the morning and hopefully we will be able to contact her this weekend. It sucks hard.

Getting back into WW in a low key kind of way, trying not to make a huge deal of it so I don’t set myself up for failure. Have been doing it almost a week now and it’s been fine. I’ll update on that from time to time.

Emily was down last weekend and we went to the berry patch. We had a good time, especially when I backed down the driveway, directly into her car. Ugh. how the hell is my memory span so short that I can’t remember there’s a car in the driveway as I’m driving backwards? Fortunately no damage to her car, but I was extremely upset with myself. There is a big scratch in our bumper, but no dents or anything, so that’s good. I will have to have it taken care of before winter brings salt and sand with it.

The dentist wants me to have a third crown done, surprise surprise. I don’t much feel like it, and it’s so much money out of our pockets that I don’t know that I will do it right now. The previous dentist I saw told me not to worry about it as long as the filling held. My main complaint with this dental practice is that it seems I rarely see the same dentist twice, so consequently, it feels like I’m getting new diagnoses each time. I’m going to just have to request to only see Dr. Johnson from now on. Since it’s his practice, I know he’ll stick around for a while. Even the hygienists didn’t know which dentists were around. Frustrating, particularly when I love going to the dentist so much in the first place. (*cough cough*) I’ve been through 3 dentists there now and just went on the website and confirmed that all 3 are gone. I saw a 4th on Tuesday, and while he was a nice guy, I don’t know if I want him doing the crown. I just feel cranky about the whole damned thing. So there.

So see? Lots of little crap going on, but nothing worth blogging about in little bits and pieces. I’ll be back with another news round up when the spirit moves me! :-D

The Leisure Seeker

2010-05-28T07:26:00.001-07:00

On Mother’s Day, my one true wish was to go to our new bookstore in town and spend the afternoon by myself, perusing, reading, and purchasing a few items. I had probably close to 30 books stacked around me at one point, but I made notes of a few titles and put most of them back. One book I could not leave behind, however, was Michael Zadoorian’s The Leisure Seeker. It tells the tale of John and Ella, a couple of octogenarians facing the end of life’s road. John is afflicted with Alzheimer’s and Ella has terminal cancer. They are being pressured by doctors and their children to accept certain treatments and living situations which are unacceptable to them.

Thus, John and Ella pack up and sneak off in their old camper, The Leisure Seeker. John still holds a valid driver’s license and has not lost the ability to get into the driving groove. They head to Chicago and decide to follow the old Route 66 as much as possible and to head to Disneyland in Anaheim, CA. Along the way, they encounter lots of different and interesting people, reminisce about the old days, and see the sites the road had to offer.

Driving the old Route 66 is something I have long thought of doing. I think it would be a lot of fun to drive “the Mother Road” across country someday and have some of those memories to share with my daughter when she is old enough. So this was a great book to read just because I enjoyed hearing about John and Ella’s experiences during the actual travel portion of their stay.

But it was also a great story in general, a story of love, the failings on the human body, family, friendship, memories, and time. I deeply loved both John and Ella. Ella was a no-nonsense kind of broad who kept her husband well in hand when his condition made him seemingly unmanageable. While you never know the pre-Alzheimer’s John, the glimpses you get of him make you love him anyway, and his “addledness” was deftly described to give you a real picture of life with Alzheimer’s.

I’m thrilled I bought this book. I gave it 4 stars on GoodReads and I know it’ll be on my shelf for some time to come. It also counts towards the Twenty-Ten Book Challenge under the “Who Are You Again?” category, which I believe fulfills my requirements for that category. Here’s what I’ve accomplished on that challenge so far:

Young Adult:
13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnston

TBR:
Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum

Shiny and New:
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
Someday My Prince Will Come by Jerramy Fine

Bad Bloggers
(None yet)

Charity
(None yet)

Older Than You:
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susanne

Win! Win!
(None Yet)

“Who Are You Again?”
Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Riegler
The Leisure Seeker by Michael Zadoorian

Up to You!
Crackhouse by Terry Williams

Almost half-way done with this challenge. I need to get moving on some others!

I Thought Someone Was Playing a Trick On Me!

2010-05-28T07:06:00.001-07:00

So yesterday, I loaded Leah into the car and we were backing out of the driveway on our way to the berry patch when I spied a package on the front porch. I was so excited—I figured my DVD’s had arrived extremely promptly from Amazon and I’d have something to do with my afternoon. I hopped out of the car and went bounding up to the box, and stopped dead in my tracks.

A bright green sticker on the box declared, “Live hermit crabs! Do not delay!”

Now, I knew damned good and well I hadn’t ordered any hermit crabs. I went through a phase where every time I went to Myrtle Beach, I wanted a hermit crab, but I was always talked out of it, so I am still hermit crab-less. However, this last trip, though I enjoyed watching them, I had no desire to actually have one. It was the first time I had thought, “Gee, I might just buy on this time!” and then thought, “No, I really don’t want one.”

So I thought for sure this was someone’s idea of a sick joke. Someone who knew me well enough to know that I had wanted one at some point had then decided to ship me one. I nearly opened the box, but decided to check the label to see who it was I was going to have to kill.

Well, surprise, surprise! The package was shipped to the wrong address! It was supposed to go to the same street address, but in Colonial Beach, not in Fredericksburg. I called FedEx immediately and said, “Someone dropped live animals on my door step and they are not for me!” The guy on the phone was cracking up. I explained how we had just gotten back from the beach and I was sure someone had been playing a practical joke, but the only joke was on the part of the FedEx delivery man, who had to come retrieve the crabs and bring them to their rightful owner.

I suppose it’s nice to know that if I ever change my mind about getting a hermit crab, I need only drive about 30 minutes down the road and I can get one!

A Week At the Beach

2010-05-25T09:40:00.001-07:00

So last week was our amazing trip to Myrtle Beach. We had talked and talked about where to go on vacation this year, but really, nowhere else would do. I have heard California calling my name for some time now—I am dying to go out there—but ultimately we decided on a relaxing week at the beach.

I could go into great detail about everything that we did and the places we went and the grand debacle of the people we went with, but there’s no point. Because what you need to know about my experience in South Carolina is this:

It makes me feel alive.

The minute we hit Myrtle Beach’s city limits, I felt a bubbling, childlike excitement stirring within me. I couldn’t wait to take my child on the beach and take her pictures. I couldn’t wait to go beachcombing for shells. I couldn’t wait to check into the condo and get settled and hear the ocean while I slept. There were a million things I wanted to do and we did them and more.

Life at the beach agrees with me. I eat less, I exercise more, I sleep better. There was only one night when the rains really descended that I didn’t walk for more than an hour on the beach. Leah really blossomed in the sun and sand and fresh air. Michael was able to lounge by the pool and relax. We started seriously talking about him finding a job in Charleston, about retiring to the beach, about how much both of us miss the water. Even the amount of stress we were under from things not going well with “friends” and Michael’s carpool situation being unresolved, that stress was far more manageable than I would have found it otherwise.

We had a wonderful time reliving old memories too. We went up to Calabash, where we had stayed several years ago with Brian and Lara, and I did a little souvenir shopping and reminiscing. We went to the Sea Captain’s House for lunch—we never go to MB without stopping there. We drove past the places we’d stayed before, and talked a lot about the things we had done before. I’ve now been to MB 7 times, Michael’s been there 6, and it’s funny how all the visits and all the stuff we did blends together after a while and we couldn’t remember what we did with whom. We also met some other wonderful families staying at the same complex as we were—notably people from Saratoga Springs, NY and another family from North Carolina. There was also a group from Canada of 20 or more, all from the Toronto area, and did those folks ever know how to party! Leah totally fell in love with them and one of the little ones they had with them, Jacob. All she had to do was flash him a sweet smile, and he’d feed her goldfish. It was a good deal.

We also made new memories, most notably the dolphin cruise, which I would do again in a heartbeat. Apart from taking a cruise with my family in the 90’s, I had never been out on the high seas and certainly never in a “small” boat like that (it sat 150 comfortably). The crew was amazing—they let us pre-board and helped us on and off the boat no problem. It was a fun day full of laughter and dolphins and the ocean!

I’m also pleased to say that the new outlets are pretty nice. I went into the Crocs outlet store and got two pairs for $23!!!! How amazing is that?! My last pair alone cost $30. I practically haven’t taken off the one pair since I bought them. I love the Croc-y goodness.

The only surprising thing that I was not able to do was that I did not read one single page of one single book. I was too busy! I didn’t really get much down time—travel with Michael has always meant a little bit of extra work on my part, but traveling with Leah was a whole new ballgame. Suddenly I had to haul toys and snacks and sunscreen and hats and drinks and, and, and! The stroller didn’t make it in the soft sand, so I’m thinking we need to get a wagon or something for our next trip, but how we’d haul it, I do not know!

The night before we left, I literally sat down and cried. Neither one of us wanted to go. Maybe we’ll be able to squeeze in another weekend somewhere, but I doubt it. Fortunately it’s close, and as my mom reminded me, “Myrtle Beach ain’t going anywhere!” So we are marking time until we can go back—hopefully next spring sometime. Until then, I am attempting to keep that peaceful feeling in my heart despite whatever curveballs life throws my way. And I’ve got an “I *heart* Myrtle Beach” keychain and an MB magnet on the car as little reminders of oneof my favorite places on Eart. :-)

Valley of the Dolls

2010-05-12T17:19:00.001-07:00

I am somewhat breaking my cardinal rule of not discussing book club books before book club on account of I just finished this month’s selection, Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls, and I simply must write a (brief) review now! Valley of the Dolls is the perfect summer beach read. In fact, I’m kind of disappointed I didn’t save it for my upcoming trip to Myrtle Beach. While I probably won’t have a whole lot of time to read while I’m chasing Leah around the beach, it’s just the kind of book that makes you think “beach read!”. I suppose now I’ll have to go buy some cheap but trashy romance novels somewhere!!!

Valley of the Dolls is the story of Anne, Neely, and Jennifer, three unknowns who arrive in New York City and climb the show biz ladder to fame and fortune. Neely arrives with a traveling vaudeville act and becomes a Broadway star which leads to movie stardom, Jennifer starts on Broadway and moves to European art films before returning to the US to become a major star, and Jennifer works as a secretary for a talent agency and eventually is discovered and becomes a TV star in her own right. All three women find out it’s not so much fun at the top, their paths littered with broken hearts and bottles of pills, which they call “dolls”.

I must say, I enjoyed the hell out of this book, probably to an embarrassing degree. I was sure I would hate it, it seemed from the description rather superficial and uninspired, but it was compelling and interesting. It was a bit voyeuristic, and I could only imagine the headlines today if these women and their men had been real people. No doubt we’d see them splashed across the cover of People and Us and OK with alarming regularity.

I rated it 4 stars on GoodReads, although I based that on my enjoyment of the book rather than on its merits. It also counts for the TwentyTen Book Challenge, in the “Older Than You” category, since it came out in the lat 60’s, and I am of mid-70’s vintage.

The Word from Thailand

2010-05-07T11:12:00.000-07:00

Hope this message finds you well. Penny and her family would like to say "they feel very happy with this good news and there is no other answer except " YES". They are ok with the placement. And please share the family's letter to Susan. Penny's mother just sent it to me.

***********************************

Dear Michael, Susan and little Leah

Thank you very much for your interest in hosting Penny. We have read Michael’s wonderful and great profile. Penny has spent a lot of time reading and is busy searching the meaning of words in her English-Thai dictionary. She is happy to receive this good news and look forward to seeing both of you.

I hope Penny would be able to learn from Michael how to overcome hard time and when frustrated and that she would be a helpful student to your family.

I admired Michael is a young successor. There are many things I would like to write. But it is not convenience because I am at work. I have to send out this short Message now to get things moving. We have just receive this news yesterday late evening.

Susan, I would like to thank you again for your great support. Please don’t hesitate to advise Penny if she is out of order. We have to make it a “Cheerful Family”.

***************************************

This sounds like a fun match!!

We do not yet know where in Thailand she is from. We have to complete our official interview and get final approval from the school here before we can officially exchange identifying information and communicate freely. Still, it is nice to hear from these people, whose daughter will change our lives and we will change hers! The world just got a wee bit smaller. :-)

Friday night update: We got approval from the school TODAY!!! Woo hoo! All that's left is the interview on 5/23. Unfortunately that is the soonest the rep is able to interview us.

Quickie Update on the Exchange Student

2010-05-06T19:10:00.000-07:00

Thailand approved us to be our prospective AFS'ers new family. Our package was delivered to her and her family today and they were going to discuss it tonight and send back an answer tomorrow. This is nearly as good as adopting again! I'm really excited and hope to have a yes answer!

Good night everyone!

Ready for the Beach!

2010-05-06T07:41:00.001-07:00

Well, in just a little over a week, we will hit the sandy shores of North Myrtle Beach. I am unspeakably excited. We have plans for some days and no plans for other days. I bought Leah a floaty thing for the pool and some sand toys. I hope she winds up loving the beach as much as her father and I do. I am really looking forward to building a sandcastle with her and putting her in her new bathing suit, and I’m praying she doesn’t eat sand. :-D

We have still been busy around here. Choir practiced started right back up the week after our big Hollywood concert. I wasn’t able to sing a whole lot on account of the fact that I was still not feeling well. We are singing a bunch of patriotic songs, and I am really excited about it. Although I’m not so sure “Give My Regards to Broadway” is all that patriotic, but what the hell! I think it’ll be a great show. If you have nothing else to do on July 3rd, come on out to Colonial Forge HS in Stafford and hear us sing!

I have been SO sick, even Michael agreed that this was a bad one. I usually do get sick every summer, but my gosh, this one will not let go! My present opinion on the matter was that I had a cold AND allergies. The cold part seems to be gone—no more sore throat or headache, but my nose is still running like crazy. I think I’m up to a ridiculous 6 or 7 boxes of tissues used. Fortunately my nose is healing. I invented my own “fix my nose” remedy a few years ago that helps when your nose gets all chapped and yucky from all that blowing. It is to use a combination of Neosporin and Blistex and rub it on there. It works wonders. My nose is still crusty, but not half as bad as it was. I am also now devoted to Zicam tablets. I was sick for over a week and finally in desperation, since I did not want to drive up and see the doctor, I started taking Zicam, and within 24 hours, I was feeling tons better. I think today I’m going to get some Claritin at the grocery store and see how that does me. If it works, I’ll know I’ve developed allergies. I knew I was sick when I only went out like 2 days last week! haha

Sunday I went and got gas for our grill. I had not been able to grill since Leah’s birthday party. I made the best barbeque chicken on Sunday for dinner and then last night I grilled up some kebabs that I had gotten at Wegman’s. YUM! Everything is so good grilled, and I tend to make healthier meals when I grill, which is an added bonus. I seem to focus more on all the food groups and making a balanced choice. In fact, since dropping my WW subscription yet again, I feel like I’ve been obsessing about food a whole lot less and hopefully this will help for when I do get back on the horse. My neighbor and I started walking again this week, but with the heat, I know I won’t be walking outside a whole lot more. I am such a wimp about being hot, but I can’t stand sweating and all that crap. I’d much rather be comfortable, so I may take up mall walking for the summer. We’ll see.

We were matched with an AFS student from Thailand earlier this week. Our paperwork was submitted to the AFS’ers in Thailand to approve us and for her and her parents to decide if she wants to live with us for the coming school year. We had considered a short term summer exchange, but having talked to the AFS volunteer and thinking about where our match might come from, we decided to accept any student they threw our way. This girl sounds like a perfect match—she volunteers in an orphanage and LOVES babies, is self-motivated, her family sounds very similar to ours, and she is extremely determined to get things done. We were told we might hear something yesterday, but we didn’t so maybe today we will get some good news, and I’ll be able to post more. I’ve been very impressed with AFS so far. I never had dealings with them as an adult; obviously my parents took charge when we hosted when I was in high school. They have already contacted the school here, done our background checks, scheduled our family interview, matched us, and call to check on us regularly. It’s pretty awesome. I’m already thinking about what wonderful parts of the United States we can show this girl while she is here and I’ll be interested to see what she would like to do while she is here. Her letter and paperwork were full of sweet little grammar things that I would no doubt make when writing or speaking in a foreign language. In one picture, she wrote “I like being outdoors but there should not be wild animals.” That really tickled me!

For anyone who didn’t read the 80 Plates blog, I have been in touch with my dad’s cousin lately. She emailed me via Ancestry.com and has been working diligently to learn more about the Cherepon side of the family. Through her, I was able to find out my great-grandparents’ names (Michael and Helen), the ships they sailed on to come to the US (he came first and sent for her later), and that they listed themselves as Hungarian, not Russian!!! They also listed themselves in some way shape or form as Austrian and in one case Slovakian. So I guess we are a mélange of Eastern European happiness. Lucas was pleased, since he is Hungarian, that his wife is too. Sunday afternoon, we called our great-aunt and did a little interview with her over the phone. She would tell us things in one or two sentences, not a lot of details, but I had a blast hearing from her and hope to go visit her in June. I mainly wanted to know what she remembered of my grandfather, and she said he was ‘all boy, very rough and tumble”. It was pretty cool to hear the couple memories of him she did share. I also hooked up with the cousin’s two daughters on Facebook and am now in contact with family I didn’t even know I had!!! Man is that ever cool! I am totally loving this.

I have been able to chat with Lesley a little bit this week via Facebook, which has made me SO happy! It’s been a while since we’ve been able to connect there, so it’s been nice to sit and chit chat. I’m determined to get her to watch Billy the Exterminator. :-D She watched it a bit while we chatted last week, but didn’t turn it on this week. She’ll be won over. I know. haha

Melissa and Emily both started book club this month, which was pretty cool. Melissa’s been wanting to join for a long time and Emily only recently expressed an interest, and I happened to be at the end of the waiting list and two people dropped out, so in they came. We had a great discussion and meal on Monday—we discussed Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum (see previous post for my review) and our dinner theme was Axis versus Allies. I know who won the war, but I’m not sure who won the culinary battle—I think we had a lot more Axis foods though, so it might have won by default :-) My potato salad and Linzertorte went over like a house on fire.

Well, even though I am back on Facebook, I am determined not to let the blog die. So check back occasionally and leave me a comment that doesn’t end in a string of periods. I love getting ‘em!

A Couple Quick Reviews

2010-05-05T12:04:00.001-07:00

I have not been reading terribly prolifically since Lent ended and I’ve been able to go back to gaming and Facebooking, plus my wee one is ever more on the move and more and more to keep up with. Add that to new activities, and I’m probably pretty lucky I’ve done any reading at all!

I did finish one challenge book and wanted to comment on this month’s book club book as well!

For my Twenty-Ten challenge “pick your own category”, I chose books on addiction. I decided to start out reading Terry Williams’s Crackhouse: Notes from the End of the Line, since it was pretty short. Well, short it may have been, but man did it take me FOREVER to read. Terry Williams apparently had already written a book about the dealers in NYC and what their lives were like, so he decided to go to the demand side and see what it was like in a crack house, looking at the lives of the users. The house he selected was run by a guy named Headache, who at some point was quite successful as a businessman, and whose friends in the business world were still attempting to pull him out of the crackhouse, get him clean and sober, and help him get back to work and being a respectable business and family man. In addition, Williams profiles several other members of the crackhouse “family” and what they do to get high, including unsafe sex.

I really did not care for this book at all. I thought it was just totally boring. It was dry and dull and hard to read from my perspective. I didn’t care a thing about any of the “characters” in the book, and I just wanted to get to the end as quickly as possible. I gave it 1 star on Goodreads.

On the other hand, this month my book club read Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum. This is a book that has been languishing on my “to be read” shelf for at least a year and a half, if not longer. I was really excited to be able to get to it, especially when I started it. Now, I was sick all last week, I’ve been sick now for 10 days. But the first day I wasn’t feeling well happened to be the day I started reading this book. My excuse the next day for staying up till 2AM was that I wasn’t able to breathe when I laid down, but in actuality, this book was so compelling, I read until I literally could not keep my eyes open any longer.

The story details Anna and Trudy. Anna is a young woman living outside a concentration camp in Germany, who does what she needs to do to survive and provide for her daughter during WWII, namely taking up with a high ranking SS officer whose eye she has caught when he comes to the bakery where she works one day. After the war, she marries an American GI and leaves Germany for good, refusing to answer any of Trudy’s questions, despite the fact that Trudy has a good many questions about her past. Trudy, who is now a college professor, begins interviewing German citizens to find out what their experience of the war was, and eventually is able to get some answers about who she is, who her mother is and what she did, and help her mother come to grips with her own fears and guilt about the past.

In book club, I think everyone liked the book, although with varying degrees of liking it. I found it compelling and exciting and interesting and horrifying by turns, and while I have no desire to read it or any other Holocaust-related books for quite some time now, I have to say that this is one of very few five star reads from the past year. I’m going to count it as one of my TBR selections so that I can get another one off the list. That has me having read 6 out of 20 books on that challenge for the year. Hooray! I’m getting there for sure.

Stuff and Failure!

2010-04-21T20:50:00.001-07:00

It has been a long couple of months... A lot of things have changed, both good and bad, and I am getting used to a lot of things being different and interesting and challenging and sometimes hard.

For instance, every single day with Leah is something new. There are days she wakes up and I think, "Who the heck are you!?" We are right on the verge of walking, I feel it in my bones. We've been going to the play park at the mall and I see her studying the other kids and really working for it. She's climbing steps now--she only goes up one or two, but man, that scares me! I can't turn my back on her for a second and she's up the basement steps. We put up the gate about a month ago, but if I forget to close it when I run up to get a drink or find the phone, bam! I come back and she is sitting there a step or two up, grinning ear to ear, considering making the rest of the journey.

Her little health scare with the heart murmur affected me more deeply than I care to admit. From the moment the nurse said something about it until we met with the cardiologist today, I have lived in a new kind of worry that I didn't know existed. Oh sure, since becoming a mom, there is the kind of generalized worry that I think most of us feel about our kids, but this was concrete "is my baby going to be OK?" worry. I pressed my ear to her chest about a thousand times this week, listening to her heart beat and praying. When Dr. Allen said, "This is the most minor heart murmur, I really had to concentrate to even hear it, don't worry and you don't need to come back", I could feel my shoulders dropping and the tears filling my eyes. I held it together until I got in the car and called my mom. Then I barely got out the words, "She's fine" before completely losing it (while hurtling down I-95 at 70 with a big truck behind me. Oh and it was raining.)

Today has not been a great day. She did not sleep well at all last night--she was up at 1:30, 3:30, and 6:30, which meant so was I. I've been going on the assumption that she is trying to pop out some molars, but then I remembered it's been 9 days since she had some vaccinations, and they said we could see the effects of those vaccinations 7-10 days out, so now I'm wondering if perhaps the crankiness is due to that more than teeth. It took us almost 2 hours to get her to sleep tonight. I have to say, when she grinned up at me when I held her and rocked her, I didn't mind so much. I just hope she sleeps tonight. I remember thinking last night, "How the heck did I do this a year ago!?" but she would sleep during the day, and so could I. Now she's a ball of fire. I swear, I was hanging out at the play park this afternoon like a zombie. I came home and slept for the better part of 2 hours. So of course, now it's midnight, and I can't sleep again! AUGH! I'm trying to decide if I should take Leah to the doctor or even call them tomorrow, but then with the teething, there's nothing they can do about it and if it's a reaction to the shots, we just have to wait it out...

The house is a bit of a shambles, but I am attempting to get back to it. When I think how utterly clean it was just a couple months ago, I'm a bit embarrassed I fell off the wagon. The Easter dinner followed by Leah's birthday party were two big events that just kind of swung things square into disasterland--tons of people helping out, putting things where I still haven't found them, everything getting moved, dirt and grass tromped in and out, food tucked into the back of the fridge. Leah is such a clotheshorse, I haven't done her laundry in over a month and she still has tons of outfits. I haven't done towels. The pile for the yard sale grows every larger.

Speaking of which, I'm thinking of having my yard sale on Saturday, May 1, weather permitting. If anyone would like to join me to make it a "multi family yard sale", please feel free. I would be happy to go elsewhere, except that I am thinking of selling some furniture, and I have no means of transporting it to anywhere other than my own yard. I have 3 folding tables, plus my dining room table, plus our spare dining table. You may need to bring your own tables and definitely some chairs... I'll provide coffee and donuts. :-) Let me know if you want to sell some stuff! Our neighborhood is usually pretty good for yard sales.

Anyway, my control journal is back out for FLYLady again, and I did two huge loads of laundry, lots of dishes, and have gathered up tons of trash today. I have a bunch of bags of "stuff" in the back of our car to drop off to my sister this weekend when I see her and then I'll be able to fill the car with garbage and haul it to the dump (yeah, like I'll have time for that this weekend too!). Still, I'm happy with how things are shaping up already, and just have a few areas of touch up before really getting into my routine again. I think it got so clean that I started thinking, "Oh, I can skip that this week, it's already plenty clean!" and that is the first pitfall on your way to disaster. Michael and I are presently debating the laundry issue. We've been using those new Purex sheets you may have seen advertised on TV. I thought they'd be a blind guy's best friend when doing the laundry, but a) they are kind of pricey and b) he doesn't like them (says the clothes don't smell fresh enough and he's not sure they're getting clean). Consequently today I went grocery shopping and picked up laundry soap, but I got the liquid, not the powder. He prefers the powder since it's easier to measure, but it's also $4 more expensive for 20 fewer loads. So now we are trying to come up with a system for him to use the liquid without making a huge mess all over the place. I don't know what we're going to do. We are thinking of trying a turkey baster that he could use to suck up the detergent and shoot it into the compartment for the washer. There's already hemming and hawing about whether that'll work or not, but it's the best idea we've had thus far.

We officially closed the door on the exchange student idea, unfortunately. My friend who is a coordinator is totally stressed out this year by the job and didn't seem able to follow through on the steps required to finish our application and get Caroline here, so we decided to ease her stress load and forgo the whole thing. We emailed the school and let them know of our decision, and hopefully now Caroline will be able to find a family quickly and enjoy her year.

This weekend is a biggie--I have choir rehearsal on Saturday morning and then my friend Kris is coming down from Springfield to have lunch. Saturday evening we have a 50th birthday party to attend in Burke. Sunday is the big concert, and I have to be at the concert site at 3:30 in the afternoon. This is going to make for a long day for Leah and Michael, so I decided to take Leah to rehearsal with me on Saturday to give him a little bit of a break. I don't know how that's going to work, but I do know I need the rehearsal time. If it doesn't pan out, I will simply have to leave rehearsal, but hopefully it'll be fine.

The exterior of the house is complete in terms of paint and shutters. I need to get a picture of the new shutters, but I am really happy with the end result. Hopefully our doors will get here soon and we'll be in business with this year's renovations. I have decided to take up mowing the lawn myself, since the kids out back are not interested in doing it. I need to take our mower in to get a new blade and then it should be operational. It'll be interesting trying to start it, I haven't started it up in a couple of years, so we'll see if it still runs. Otherwise, I'll go get a cheap mower, but there's a repair shop right around the corner that I'm going to take it to for the blade, since we've been through several without finding the right one. Then I will take a stab at mowing. I've never mowed before, but I have to say, I'm kind of looking forward to it.

The big thing from this week was the tire debacle. I don't know. As I blogged before, dealing with car issues is my biggest stressor, and this whole situation is exactly the reason why. When the tires first crapped out in December 2008, I did a ton of research on the web and calling around to various stores to try and find the blasted size this car required. Finally, the only place we could get them was at Firestone, and the guy at the Firestone dealer informed me that there were no high mileage tires in this size, the best I could get was a 30,000 mile tire. They cost me over $700. Ok, fine, I didn't figure I'd be doing 30,000 miles worth of driving in a year and half, but whoo boy, was I wrong! The majority of it was while my dad was sick last summer and we were going back and forth to Vermont every day and to Star Lake, and just getting to and from Plattsburgh. Then there were the weekly trips to Baltimore before Leah was born, all the driving to and from Maryland during the court proceedings, doctors appointments, etc and our appointments in Richmond. To say nothing of trips up north while I was still working, book club meetings, travels around town, leisure travel, etc. It's just been nutty. So of course, three of the four tires failed inspection, and one was on the verge of it. And the guy at the garage says to me that he can stick a high mileage tire on the car, made by a company other than Firestone, for the same price as the Firestone tires, and depending on how long we have the car, we may never need to buy another set of tires. So I ask you: Did I get screwed by Firestone? Or am I getting screwed by the inspection guy? I lean towards getting screwed by Firestone only because I have been going to this particular garage for inspections, etc for a long time and I do trust them there. But it REALLY pisses me off that one way or another, someone is not telling me the truth about tires and my car. We are also pissed about the sheer price of the things--$800 is more than we paid for the Myrtle Beach condo, and it more or less was a good hunk of our nest egg for the coming year that we had set aside out of our tax return. I do believe that we will be fine and dandy, honestly what's left to possibly break?, but it'd still be nice to have that money in the bank, just in case. Anyway, all that being said, it only adds to my stress level to get two radically different opinions about the tires, pay the same price for two radically different tires, and know that somewhere, someway, somehow, I was screwed by a mechanic. This only makes it that much worse the next time I have to have something done--the stress ratchets up again.

As for other aspects of life... Everyone keeps inquiring about the Weight Watchers stuff. I have more or less fallen off the wagon. I keep thinking about it, but by mid-day I'm done. I just don't care. I want the results without the work (haha, don't we all!?). There are so many pitfalls and temptations out there and there is a big part of me that is tired of resisting. As more and more people are more and more successful, I feel like more and more of a failure, which is making it harder and harder to even feel like trying. I am thrilled for other people's success, but it makes my own inability to commit that much harder to come to terms with. I know I can "just" get right back up on the horse and get going, but I am getting more and more depressed about the whole thing. I keep seeing May in the mirror--I joined in May of 2008, and I think that maybe I should recommit myself this May. I don't know. I keep making these arbitrary deadlines and they keep passing and I keep not doing anything. I just need to get my butt down to a meeting and get going. I just don't feel like it. I guess I need to have myself a good cry about the whole thing and then forgive myself, let the past go, and get started. It just sucks is all. I feel like a big fat failure and that is not the place from whence you can really start over. You need to feel some sense of "YES I CAN!" before you do. And I know I can, I just don't feel it.

There are a lot of things fallen by the wayside at the moment. 80 Plates, I don't know if I'll ever finish it. I get depressed just looking at the blog. I can't think of any other countries I'm dying to do and all the research I have done into it has been good, but it's a lot of work, and I am short on time. There are only so many pieces of the Susan pie to go around. And I suppose that is something I am struggling with a bit. What do I want to devote myself to? I sat down and made a list the other day of all the things I feel passionately about that I would like to do something about. For instance, every time I drive to the mall, I feel very badly about the homeless people out on Rte 3 begging for money, and I would love to do something about it. But what exactly? Michael did some research into volunteer opportunities for me to work with the homeless population here, but then I have to consider that this would require additional time away from my family, which puts the burden of childcare on him. And while Leah is finally starting to warm up to him, it is far from a smooth road at the moment, so it requires being willing to go out and just hope for the best while I'm gone, which robs me of some of the enjoyment I get from doing things. I would also love to be an AFS volunteer, a literacy volunteer, volunteer at the library, considering a part time job when Barnes and Noble opens here in town, considering launching some sort of business on my own about which I have several ideas. I want to go ten thousand different directions, and I can't. For my own sanity, I just can't.

Anyway, Leah's already been up once during the writing of this post, so I'd better roll on into bed before she gets up again. A little sleep is better than none. Thanks for listening to my whining if you've made it this far!!!!

Eight Years

2010-04-20T07:34:00.001-07:00

Olive Kitteridge

2010-04-13T13:08:00.001-07:00

One of the books I selected for the Twenty Ten Book Challenge was Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. I wanted to get through our club discussion of the book before posting here. It counts as my second “Shiny and New” book and finishes off that category of the challenge.

Olive Kitteridge won the Pulitzer Prize and tells the story of a small town in Maine and its inimitable retired math teacher, Olive Kitteridge. According to the jacket notes, the story centers around Olive, but in fact, to me, that doesn’t seem the case. In several of the stories, Olive is a mere mention in passing.

I’m really split just about 50/50 on whether I like collections of short stories where a narrative is attempting to be woven through the stories to create a novel. In some instances, it works well and I love it, such as Philip Gulley’s Harmony series and Stuart McLean’s Vinyl Cafe series, both of which I adore. Books like Olive Kitteridge, however, fail to meet the mark for me. In most cases, I feel as though I want to know more about a particular set of characters and nothing at all about other sets. In this case, the book was supposed to revolve around Olive herself, but in fact it was her husband Henry I found to be a more compelling character. I would have loved to know more about Heather, the young woman in the first story who goes to work for Henry and ultimately endures a series of tragedies. I did not care much at all for the tween, for the guy with the mother who killed herself, or for many of the other characters.

The book was OK, when I was interested in it, I was really interested in it, but for the most part, it was a bit of a chore to work my way through and left me dissatisfied. I generously gave it 3 stars on GoodReads—didn’t love it, didn’t hate it, it just was.

Reflections on the Past Year

2010-04-08T11:24:00.001-07:00

A year ago, a nurse placed a warm little bundle in my arms and offered to take some pictures while I let the tears flow freely and whispered, “I want to be your mommy” into the ear of a child who was not yet mine. I had no idea what kind of a mother I would be, I had no idea in that moment how my life would change. My mind was whirling with a million different thoughts and emotions, telling my heart to play it safe and not fall in love while my heart was transmitting a signal loud and clear that said, “Too late.”

So many of the things that were important to me a year and a day ago are not important to me now. So many new things are important that I never dreamed of. I have made serious life changes, I have learned about myself and about other people. I have met people I didn’t know, fallen away from people who I thought I would never stop hearing from, experienced mind-boggling highs and heartbreaking lows, laughed from sheer exhaustion, cried with joy and beauty. I have experienced 150% unconditional love, a love that doesn’t care if I’m fat or messed up or crabby or tired or a thousand other “ors”. A love that only cares that I’m me. It has inspired me to believe in myself in a way that I don’t think I have since I myself was a young child.

I genuinely didn’t know it was possible to experience a depth of emotion like I feel when I look at my daughter. I can’t imagine the hours I’ve spent looking at pictures of her while she takes her naps, just because I miss her while she’s sleeping. The mere thought of her robs me of my ability to speak, a lump forms in my throat and I try not to cry. I thought it was a cliché before when I heard women say, “Someone took my heart out of my chest and gave it arms and legs”. It’s not, it is true. Wherever she is, my heart is with her. When she climbs up on me and wraps her arms around my neck, snuggling into my hair, I have no idea how my body can contain the absolute joy I feel at that moment.

I am living the life I always dreamed about. I have an amazing collection of friends, both here locally and far afield. A year ago, I didn’t know Wendy, and I only knew Cindy and Amanda a little. Today, I can’t imagine how I would have survived my first year of mommyhood without them. They have become confidantes, advice-givers, and story-sharers. They let me talk about puke and poop and temper tantrums and sleep depravation like it’s all new and I’m telling them something they don’t know. The girls in my book club have been an ever-present source of support, from throwing me a shower last March to this past Monday when they listened patiently to me discuss the circumstances in which I now find myself, without a whole lot of family support. Elizabeth, Lauren, and Dustina have given me a shoulder to cry on and checked in with me regularly. Elizabeth helped me start to believe “We love you because of who you are, not what you do.” Melissa has never turned down an SOS when I needed a break and to get some sleep. The love I feel from Mike and Lesley and Russell and Amy, Leah’s surrogate aunts and uncles, the acceptance my daughter has received from people who don’t have to love her or her parents, it is inspiring and it touches me every day. Landry and Meredith keep me laughing. Colleen is as reliable as clockwork, and patient as the day is long. How blessed Michael and I were to find her.

And I cannot forget the young woman who left that baby in my arms and told me to be a mommy. This weekend when we see her, I will hug Tasha and remember again all she sacrificed that we could be together, that “we” could be “three”.

I have been able to travel. I have been able to attend my father-in-law’s 70th and sit by my ailing father’s bedside and go see my favorite authors and travel to see my best friends and go to Florida for the first time in years and entertain company and take care of my niece and witness the birth of my nephew and take care of my physical and mental health and hang out with friends any time of the day without a care in the world about how much vacation time I had.

I have seen a new side of my husband, witnessed the unerring patience he has with a little being who has gone from being furious if he walked in the room to starting to finally mellow out and enjoy his company. He has been patient with my growing pains as a new mom, has given me time to go back to being “just Susan” when I needed it, spoiled me when I didn’t deserve it, and encouraged me to change things I wasn’t happy about within myself. He has asked so little in return, and I have never felt closer to him than I do now. We are truly a team in so many ways. Our marriage isn’t just a couple of people who kind of like each other. We are “the parents” and we have “a family”.

I have let things fall by the wayside. I am not going to give up on the goals I had for myself before I was a mom. But I’ve learned to be gentler on myself and focus on the things that are most pressing and remember what’s important in the grand scheme of things. I have learned that I have value and that I am worth more than how I have been treated in the past and how I saw myself in only that light. And all because one year ago today, a little girl was handed to me and both she and her first mother put all their faith in me that I could be the person I wanted to be, for myself, but mostly for her. I love you, Leah. You have changed my life with yours.

Happy Cherry Blossom Festival!

2010-04-01T16:18:00.001-07:00

Thus Begins The Insanity!

2010-03-31T18:17:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow is April 1, and in a week, my baby will turn 1. It is something I simply cannot fathom. She is a beautiful, smart, funny little darling, and while we’ve had moments of stress and anxiety in the past year, I would not have changed a thing about it at all. I have a dream job—staying home and raising a little person. What a joy! Even though I just had some Easter portraits done at Sears, I scheduled an appointment to have some more portraits done on her actual birthday over at Picture People, since they sent me a coupon.

Today, Leah and I went to the mall with my friend Lisa and her little guy, Daniel, who is about 5 months older than Leah. We walked them around the mall, they both met the Easter bunny, we had a nice lunch, and let them play at the playpark in the mall. Lisa and I met last summer when I decided to have a Pampered Chef show and put a notice in every mailbox on the street to try and meet my neighbors. Unfortunately, Lisa couldn’t make it, but we started walking together around the neighborhood. Leah was still too little to play much, so we didn’t really hang around, but now that Leah is a little bit bigger, we’ve been spending more time together. Tomorrow, we are going to go up to DC to see the cherry blossoms, have a picnic, and let the kids play out on W. Potomac Park. It should be a great day. We are both going back to WW the Saturday after Easter (Leah’s birthday party), and we’ve been motivating each other to walk a couple miles each day when the weather is nice. I have been enjoying having a friend right down the street and we have common interests and a similar parenting philosophy. The other night, she, Daniel, and her husband were walking around our block and stopped over. John and Michael hit it off like a house on fire, so I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of them!

Work started on the house today. The main level and all the brick and the front porch were powerwashed and the old shutters were removed. It looks kind of odd in that whoever lived here before didn’t bother to paint underneath the shutters when they painted the house, so we can actually see the color of the original brick. It makes me wish even more that whoever did it had not painted the brick, but what’s done is done, so now we will finish the job. We picked what I hope is a nice yellow color, although I suspect that it’s going to be more beige-ish. I’m reserving judgment till I see it, but I hope I’m going to like it!

Then it’ll be time to get ready for the weekend!!!! I plan to spend Friday shopping and defrosting a giant turkey, as well as starting to prepare the coconut cake I’m going to make for dessert (unless I wimp out at get the Wegman’s Ultimate White Cake, which, frankly, is AMAZING). Saturday will be spent doing preparations for Easter, and then in the evening I’ll be going off to dinner and bingo with Wendy. (Anyone else want to play? We’ll be in the usual spot!)

I’m really excited for Easter. I think we’ll have a nice crew and it’ll be fun having some kids around. Most importantly, Mr. Gobble will be out of my freezer, freeing up valuable real estate for provisions for the party. I hope the painters get the house painted by Easter is the only thing! I plan to take Leah to church first thing and then we’ll get cookin’! So far, Manda is bringing potato salad, Melissa is bringing devilled eggs, and Wendy is bringing a ham and mac n’ cheese to make her fussy eaters happy. I think we’ll have a nice variety of food for sure.

Monday is book club. We’ll be discussing Olive Kitteridge and then I will post a review here afterwards. Friday, Michael is having some training on Leah stuff, and then we have to go to DMV, since we just discovered his ID expired a year ago! Then we’ll start preparing for the big blow out. My buddy Joe is coming down Friday to help out, and we’ll go and get the food. I hope the weather is nice—we’re going to try having a cook out and I would love to be outside as much as possible. If you’re coming and it’s nice, please bring a camp chair, lawn chair, etc. if you have them. Saturday is the party and then Sunday I have choir practice. Then Jennifer arrives that Thursday, and we’ll spend Friday apartment hunting. Saturday we will take her back to Richmond to the airport, go to a birthday party in Richmond, and hopefully meet up with some new friends we’ve been corresponding with through our adoption attorney—they are hoping to adopt soon, and have turned to us for advice. The following week is our wedding anniversary, and a pile of dress rehearsals for the chorus concert, which is the following weekend. The 24th, I am getting together with my friend Kris, whose kids and husband will all be out of town. The 25th is the big concert (tickets are still available at the low, low price of $85!), and by then, it’ll be the end of the month! Sheesh, I’m tired just thinking about it.

I’ve been in contact with a friend from home since I sent out the email asking people to vote for Leah. I said to her that if we won, we would come visit her while we are in NYC, since she lives in NYC, and she told us not to wait, to come anyway! Turns out she lives right near where I went to college, so I’m thrilled that I can go visit my old stomping grounds, show Michael Manhattan College, and we can go around NYC. We are hoping to get up there in June. And of course, in May, we’ve got our trip to Myrtle Beach lined up. I got Leah some clothes today and a bathing suit—this one a one piece to compliment the two piece her auntie sent her. We are so excited to be going, although sad to hear the Wellses can’t join us after all!!! I plan to do a lot of R&R that week. And it’s nice the fee for the condo includes the maid service, so we can just walk on out of there Saturday morning with nary a thought.

We have become the smoothie king and queen. We had a box of oranges to use up, so I juiced them all and then put the juice in the blender with the strawberries I had picked and frozen last summer. YUM! Since then, we’ve been trying different kinds. We had strawberry lemonade slush tonight, and last night we had peach-berry. Michael has loved them too, and we have similar taste in fruit, so it’s working out very well.

So that’s about it. Less than a week till I get to go back on Facebook, but it doesn’t seem as important as it did nearly 40 days ago. I have enjoyed blogging again, so I can see myself reading other people’s updates, and I’m sure I’ll post updates, but I just hope I keep up with my blog.

Till next time!

Vote For Leah!

2010-03-30T05:55:00.001-07:00

I entered Leah in the American Baby cover model contest. Her photo was selected for voting. If you’d like to vote for her, please visit http://photos.parents.com/category/vote/photo/179940 You can vote for her as many times as you have computers, once per computer per day. We are currently in 9th place. Please post to your blogs, email, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc. We could win a trip to NYC :-)

Thanks!

VICTORY!!!!!

2010-03-29T19:14:00.001-07:00

Winning never felt so good. Tonight, we went out to trivia night at the Fredericksburg Pub. We had a plan to bring in more brain power, but no one responded when I posted anything here, so I had a feeling we’d be on our own. Still, I told Michael as we pulled out, “I think this is our night, I’m feeling lucky!”

We got to the Pub and Landry and Meredith were there with a recruit! Landry’s friend Rob, who has won on Jeopardy before. We changed our team name to “Revenge of the Nerds” and we were all set! Between having an extra person, the general trivia questions (all of us knew answers, which really helped!), well, long story short, WE WON THE ENTIRE ENCHILADA. We got 17 out of 20 on general trivia and 9 out of 10 on the music round for a total of 26. It was AWESOME!

We won a T-shirt, hat, and towel for the general trivia round. Rob took the towel, we decided to give the little T-shirt to Leah, and Landry got the hat. For winning both rounds, we won a $25 gift certificate to the pub for our next visit.

Man does it feel good to have won after all this time :-) I think we fairly floated home. What felt even better is that I handed the host our sheet and told him it was a winner, and he was like, “Yeah right.” Eat crow, my man, WE DID IT!