Time Flies!

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!” :) 

Hello, Old Friend

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

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

Can I Be Famous?

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…

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!

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

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

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

Old Year, New Year

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.

Ready for a Break

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

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!

Yard Sailing…

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*

I Thought Someone Was Playing a Trick On Me!

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!

Stuff and Failure!

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!!!!

Stuff!

Well, my husband must really love me, is all I can say. This week, I'm out 4 nights. Sunday I had choir practice, Monday I had book club, tonight I am going to see the Harlem Globetrotters with the Heplers, and tomorrow I am going up to see my friend Debbie from DBVI for dinner. He has been so, so patient and taken such good care of Leah while I've been sowing my wild oats. Although, I will say, we had a little incident on Sunday that I thought was pretty hilarious.

I came home from choir practice, and he says to me, "Susan, Leah threw up on her shirt." I said, "Oh really? What did you do?" "I washed it off with a washcloth, but then it was wet, so I just took it off her and put her to bed. I covered her up nice." "Yeah, but what is she wearing? Did you put PJ's on her?" "No, I don't know how, I just put her to bed and covered her up." I went upstairs, and sure enough, there was Leah, sound asleep wearing nothing but her pants and socks. I turned the heat up a bit just in case it got cool, and let it go. But I thought it was hilarious and so new-dadish!

My in-laws stopped in for a quick overnight on Monday on their way home from Florida. It sounded as if Florida was a bit of a bust for them this year--much cooler temperatures than usual. Still, I'm sure they had their usual good time, and it was real nice to see them an extra visit, even if I was gone for most of it. Book club was a lot of fun, although it was awfully strange without Judy there for the first time in 5 1/2 years. I have heard through the grapevine that this may be a permanent state of affairs, so perhaps it'll be something I have to get used to, but I haven't heard anything about that as yet. We were hosted by Maggie at her house, and it was her book that we discussed, but unfortunately she got a call right as we kicked off and had to leave because her daughter had a little fall. It was great that she trusted all of us to be in her home without her, and fortunately she got good news about little Natalie--no broken bones! We did clean up after ourselves and got a nice note from her yesterday, so it reminded me again of what a family the club has become. Everyone really is there for you when you need them.

Yesterday I was feeling a little blue, so I texted Cindy and Wendy to see if they wanted to have lunch with me (Manda, do you text? If so, I need your number!). Cindy replied that I could come on over to her place, so we made plans to have lunch at Chick-Fil-A and then I would go to her house for a Cricut tutorial. Just as we left Chick-Fil-A, my phone buzzed and it was Wendy! She said she was free for lunch tomorrow (which is now today) and did I want to meet her at 12:30 at Chick-Fil-A. Hahaha Good thing they like us in there!!! So we are dining at CFA this afternoon. They have a wonderful greeter/drink refiller/hostess in there named Deborah and as we were leaving, I said to her, "See you next time!" Little did I know next time is 24 hours later!

Last night we had dinner with the Heplers at Chilis. I had to get my Globetrotters ticket from them and will meet them up north in Stafford today. The game is at North Stafford High, and since I have been to Stafford High for basket bingo and Colonial Forge for choir practice, I think I'll have covered the local high schools now and should know where all of them are.

LOST last night was amazing--not quite as good an episode as last week, but awfully good nonetheless. We really are getting down to the end, only 10 episodes to go, and they really are starting to make sense of the whole thing, even though there are still many unanswered questions. I am enjoying the hell out of it, and will be sad when it is over, but at least I have my DVD's and I can go back through and re-watch the entire thing from start to finish to see what I've missed and what makes sense now in light of later episodes, etc. I haven't kept up with Project Runway as much this season. I think last season was such a bitter disappointment, and this season I just don't seem to care. Isn't that awful? I was such a fan. And this season has been so much better than last season, I feel kind of guilty for not watching! I read the Project Rungay blogs to see who wins and loses, and maybe I'll catch up eventually, but just haven't felt like it lately. I also haven't felt like staying up to watch Hoarders, but at least I've been catching up with that on A&E's site.

For anyone who has asked, no, we still have not heard anything about our exchange student. We are just waiting to hear if the school will accept her. We were hoping to hear by the end of January, but then with all the snows in early February, we still haven't heard anything and here it is March! We would love to get in touch with her and start getting to know her a bit better, but I guess we just have to be patient and let things take their course.

In the meantime, we've decided to do some flipflopping of our house if we are able to. We are going to move the home office downstairs into the basement and make Mike's office upstairs into the extra bedroom. This makes sense for a number of reasons: 1. Caroline will have a closet! 2. When the baby wakes up at 6:00am and wants to play, I can take her downstairs and not have to worry about waking up a slumbering teen! 3. The guestroom is a bit larger than the upstairs room, so I could put up a desk for my new scrapbooking hobby! 4. Mike can go use the computers and radios as much as he wants at any time of the day or night without having to use his headphones or worrying about disturbing anyone. 5. At night when we are all doing our own thing, we will still be on the same floor and easily accessible to one another without having to holler up and down the stairs. 6. Our upstairs floors are really creaky and it won't keep anyone up any more if they are trying to sleep in the spare room if someone's moving upstairs and creaking around.

The two questions that will hold this operation up are: 1. can we get that room wired for ETHERNET and 2. can we get his radio antennas wired into that room. He's got a buddy from the ham club coming over to have a look, and then we'll ask our friend about the computer wiring. He could go back to using wireless, but I've been informed he does not want to do that.

Once we find out if it's possible to do this, I'll have to go on a marathon painting binge, since I'm sure Michael doesn't want a pink striped office. It was a lot of work and I enjoyed it and loved the stripes, but I think something a little more subdued will probably be better for a man cave with a wife-corner. I will probably also repaint the office, but maybe not. The color does match all the bedding we already have, so I may just leave it for now and if Caroline doesn't like it, she can help me repaint it. If anyone wants to help paint or move furniture, we'll pay in pizza, beer, or whatever else floats your boat!

We are excited that Mike and Lesley's niece is moving to DC this summer, so even though it's not Mike and Lesley, it's the next best thing :-) She is coming to stay at the Cookie Jar this April and I'm going to take her apartment hunting while she's here so she can get off to a good start when she makes the move in June. She is a great gal and of course we hope this will be an even bigger incentive for Mike and Lesley to move on up here too!!! :-) Damn the housing market is all! But I know they cannnot resist Leah's siren song, so I have a funny feeling they'll come on up sometime sooner rather than later, as Lesley said :-) Jennifer and I have been swapping emails back and forth to figure out a game plan, and we have just over a month to figure out what we want to do, so I know it will be great. I'm of course going to steer her towards living on the Virginia side of things, because we know how those Maryland types are. Haha!

As for Weight Watchers, well, it seems like I get going and then I get off track. I really did great my first week back, down 4.2 pounds, and then BANG! The snow storm hit and we sat around and ate brownies and cake and did puzzles and read books and stuff. Then the storm was over, and we went to Greensboro and enjoyed ourselves. Then we got back and I just couldn't face it the first week, and that week turned into two, turned into 3. I know it is something I need to do, I have made concrete goals for myself and I want the results, I just have to get into a mindset of where it's going to happen. I remember where it all went terribly wrong--we were up in Plattsburgh when my dad first had the attack and we went to the store, and I thought, "F*** this, I'm getting some Doritos." It's all been downhill from there. I know I can, and I know I will, it's just a matter of when! :-)

As for FlyLady, everything is just great! I do a quick clean every day, and my in-laws were SO impressed when they walked in Monday. They were like, "you have done a lot of work around here!" Between that and Michael's "It's a whole new Susan!" campaign, I guess I was a real slob before :-) But I'm happy with how things look and how easy it is to maintain. If I could just get Leah to pick up her toys...

I guess that's about all the news that's fit to print from Fredericksburg. I am very nearly ready to break out my Cricut and get scrapping, just need to go get some pictures printed off at Walmart and then I'm going to town. I'm so excited. I'll post some pictures of what I create. I got a couple of extra cartridges at Joann's yesterday since they are 50% off right now, so I can use different fonts, etc. on the book. Cindy gave me a great tutorial yesterday, so I'm feeling pretty confident I'll be ready to scrap in no time!

Hope everyone else is doing just dandy :-) Drop me a line, update your own blog, let me know what's going on!