A Girl Named Stewart

Induction in 60 hours!

2011-11-22T17:10:00.001-05:00

WHHHEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

The worst part about false labor...

2011-11-12T17:20:00.002-05:00

isn't the pain, it's the disappointment of not getting to actually go into labor and meet our daughter. Our Bradley instructor told us multiple times that labor often starts in the evening and subsides in the middle of the night and will pick up again in the morning. I've had extended periods of false labor over the past 10 days but the worst/ most like real labor was last night. I was just convinced that we were going to head to the hospital and then...nothing. I can handle the pain, but waking up this morning and going through today with just sporadic contractions is the absolute worst. I really, really thought I was showing all the signs of early labor. Grumble grumble.

Up and out!

2011-11-10T07:38:00.003-05:00

So I've successfully kept a schedule for the last 2 days: I've gotten up at the same time as I did before, put on make up, put on real clothes, and done grown up things. Today I'm off to a volunteer event, which is my first attempt at doing something professional.
I can do this. I can do this.

2011-11-09T10:18:00.002-05:00

The good news is last night's sleep was more than double the night before! The night before being 2 hours and last night was 2.5 hours, being awake for 2 hours, then another 2.5 hours.
NEAT.

2011-11-09T02:41:00.002-05:00

"But little Mouse, you are not alone,In proving foresight may be vain:The best laid schemes of mice and men Go often askew,And leave us nothing but grief and pain,For promised joy!" - Robert Burns.

"Let our advance worrying become advance planning and advance thinking." - Winston Churchill

Pro Tip:

2011-11-08T15:06:00.002-05:00

If you're 38.5 weeks pregnant, have a 20 minute conversation with your estranged father about how much he loves you, and get a couple of emails from coworkers full of positive thoughts, and DO NOT want to sit in the dark crying, don't listen to Ben Harper's "Roses from My Friends."

Today's thought is inspired by the most recent episode of "The Walking Dead".

2011-11-08T02:58:00.002-05:00

All I'll say is that for the past few days I thought I was in a bad place, not unlike trying to survive a zombie apocolypse. Then today was like I found out that not only am I trying to eke out an existance in a zombie apocolypse, but there are contaminated zombie guts in my drinking water and I have to leave the place where I'm seeking refuge.

From here to Maternity (Leave)!

2011-10-13T11:29:00.002-04:00

6 weeks! 6 weeks! Woo hoo! That's right, 42 days till my maternity leave!
Some of the more astute people may be scratching their heads and wondering why in the world I'm starting my maternity leave 5 days AFTER my due date. Primarily, it's because I'm a first time mom and I know I will go over my due date. It also coincides nicely with leaving for the Thanksgiving holiday. There are financial reasons, too. If I work up until the Thanksgiving holiday I will get paid time off for Thanksgiving just like any other employee. However, if I leave the office before Thanksgiving I won't get paid automatically for those days. I'd have to use days from my cache of PTO or go without pay.
Also, since a due date is basically impossible to pin down, it's easier to get excited about a day that I can say will definitely happen as opposed to counting down to my due date and then getting deflated during every day that passes.
6 weeks! 6 weeks! I can do this!

Sentences I never thought I'd hear a doctor say

2011-09-22T12:06:00.001-04:00

"Well, that's a head...or...nope...maybe she's been doing Buns Of Steel..."

She's my dancing queen, young and sweet, only unbooooooOOOooorn...

2011-09-15T10:46:00.002-04:00

I'm really hoping that this dance party in my uterus means Ava is flipping. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE feeling her feet and head and hands and knees. I'm actually kind of sad that in the next 4-5 weeks she'll run out of room and her movements will start to decrease. However, she's still breech and I'm getting anxious about it. About a quarter of babies are breech at this point in pregnancy (30 weeks) and that goes down to 5% by the time the actual due date rolls around. I'm just a worrier and I can't find any information on first time moms and being breech this late in the game in relation to actually being breech when labor starts. I can feel her pedaling her little feet, which I know means she's trying to turn, so keep it up little girl!

Shower Apologist

2011-08-20T17:57:00.003-04:00

I'm super uncomfortable with my baby shower. I didn't have any wedding showers, or engagement parties, or formal pictures, or bachelorette parties, so it's just very weird to be the center of gift-giving attention. After all, these people didn't get me pregnant, so why should they be responsible for my stuff?
I used to really roll my eyes at people who put expensive things on their registries. Do you really think your friends are going to buy you a crib or changing table or fancy stroller? Then I learned that many baby stores have discounts on items you registered for if you purchase them after your due date. Though it may not be the best idea to wait till after the due date to purchase a crib, I can totally see waiting to buy a stroller or breast pump or changing table after the due date if it means saving 20-25%.
Basically, if you're reading this and are coming to my shower, please don't think that I expect you to get us a big ticket item!

What I feel like after every meal.

2011-08-16T15:54:00.003-04:00

This is not a complaint! Every meal or snack makes me feel like I've just backed away from gorging myself at a Golden Corral buffet. I never thought I'd get the itis from 6 ounces of yogurt.

Things that I just can't stand.

2011-08-11T12:05:00.002-04:00

Do you ever feel like you're the only sane person in the world? There are a few things about pregnancy that just boggle my mind. In order from "stabby" to "eye-rolling", they are:

1) Gender Reveal parties

2) Babymoons

3) Maternity photo shoots

Gender reveal parties...UGH. I swear, we are about 5 years away from pee-stick reveal parties where you'll have to go to your friends house to see the overly annoying couple dramatically unwrap a gigantic box that contains a positive or negative pregnancy test. Not every aspect of pregnancy deserves a party, OK?

Babymoons and maternity photo shoots are just the biggest, most self involved wastes of money, IMHO, especially when the couple involved is also having a baby shower. I feel like they're saying, "Hey! Look at us spending money on frivolous stuff! Disposable income! WHEE!!! Now buy our kid a gift that we preselected."

That was easy.

2011-08-09T11:56:00.003-04:00

So I postulated earlier on our daughter's name. We're not ready to announce it quite yet, but we have the name all picked out!
I posted some name options and all of a sudden got some new followers and reblogs from more PG-13 sites. One of the names we picked out is the stage name of an adult entertainment model. Not that there's anything wrong with that; it's just not want we want people to find if and when they google our little tiny princess.
Thanks for making name selection easy, adult sites!

This is a Mom blog.

2011-07-26T17:01:00.003-04:00

I don't want to coat my facebook wall with pregnancy stuff (ewww, I just realized how gross that sounded), so I think the majority of this blog will be related to my current gestating status! This won't be a pregnancy blog per se, or one of those dear baby blogs, but I've been censoring myself on the internet about my pregnancy and I won't do that here.
I'll still be AGirlNamedStewart, but that's only because there are so many cool pregnancy blog names that are already taken.
Girls Gone Child? From Here to Maternity? My Lovely Lady Bump? The Daily Discharge? All taken.

Owie Zowie

2011-07-25T21:05:00.002-04:00

I had Braxton Hicks contractions for the first time today...yikes! "Painless" my foot. I had super strong pain in the center of my abdomen for almost 2 hours. My doctor's office was closed when I called and I didn't want to incur the costs of calling the on call practitioner. After a lot of hydration and walked I stopped feeling so horrible.
I finally am not freaked out since I've felt her move for a while. I can't believe anyone ever said Braxton Hicks were painless.

Joy to the World

2011-05-18T10:59:00.001-04:00

I'll have a little human being with no free will and almost no muscle control to dress up this holiday season.
HALLELUJAH indeed.

I must seem like the biggest nerd

2011-05-05T17:32:00.002-04:00

Today's my birthday! Everyone at the office wants to know what I'm doing to celebrate. I'm telling them the truth: I'm going home and sleeping. People have kind of given me weird looks and it just dawned on me that people in the office don't yet know that I'm pregnant. They just think I want to celebrate my 29th birthday by being unconscious.

Current state of mind: terrified

2011-04-23T22:06:00.003-04:00

One of our pets had a seizure today. We've ruled out anything that was ingested, so this is probably genetics.
I never want to leave my baby again.

Deep Breaths

2011-03-17T17:49:00.002-04:00

I'm a little bit frustrated right now. It's not a big deal.

Back story: this summer I had a large ruptured ovarian cyst. My period was 12 days late (!), I was tired all the time, I felt full after eating small amounts of food, I gained some water weight below my belly button, and I sometimes had a dull or even hot ache in my lower abdomen. I got it checked out, no big deal, it went away after a month or two.

Right now John and I aren't trying to not start procreating, if that makes sense. I'm 4 days late and I was actually getting a little excited! I've been tired and feeling uncomfortably full. I was waiting until I was a full week late to take a test because I don't want to get a false negative. For about a week I'd intermittently have a sharp twinge in my lower abdomen, which I thought were maybe maybe maybe round ligament pains. This morning I started to feel a dull pain in my lower front side and after lunch felt that familiar hot sensation right where my ovary is. Not being pregnant right now isn't the biggest deal. I just really wish I wouldn't be growing a cyst the first month that a pregnancy would be happy news. Oh well.

TMI?

2011-03-09T23:28:00.002-05:00

I think John's in guy heaven. This evening he watched Star Wars and then watched porn while playing Angry Birds.

Non-breeder rant

2011-03-08T12:49:00.006-05:00

I don't have kids, so I can't pretend to know what it's like to have to dress a little idiot. It won't prevent me from judging people, though. Here are 2 pairs of sunglasses from Gymboree:
Our society is so crazy over consumerism. I can tell EXACTLY what kind of parent would buy these glasses. There's no way a parent over 26 years old would buy these and the purchaser is probably a single mom. She can't relate to anything in hip hop but listens to it all the time and thinks it's cute when her kid knows the words to songs. She either went to community college or got some kind of technical training after high school and lives with her parents or rents an apartment. The inside of her older Honda Civic or Nissan Sentra is totally decorated with stuff that says "princess". She has a tattoo with her kid's name. Her kid's name is a weird spelling of a traditional name or a noun that kind of works as a name (and is probably also spelled weirdly) like Natalee or Justyce.

Then there are these:
Oh yeah, hipster glasses for kids. Jesus take the wheel. The parents of this kid weren't married when the mom got pregnant. If they're not married now, it's because they're waiting till everyone has the right to get married or they see marriage as an outdated tradition that doesn't apply to them. If they're engaged now, they got engaged in between when the mom found out she was pregnant and the kid was 6 months old. They have no plans of getting married. If they're married, they had the twee-est ceremony ever. They both wear hipster glasses. They shop at Goodwill for their clothes and some of their baby's clothes because they don't want to buy into the materialism of society, but they will totally buy most of their kid's clothes at Old Navy and Target because they love to dress their kid in new clothes that look old, like t shirts with faded writing. They have a big dog and had another dog or a cat but they "had to" get rid of it when the baby came. They take every picture with the Hipstamatic app on their iPhone. The kid's name is from some book or an author that the parents think is so special because they were so touched by it, but the book or author is very mainstream and has had great success. Examples would be Harper, Puck, or Esmerelda.

Project Condom

2011-03-02T10:07:00.003-05:00

Project Condom (Project Runway but with condoms) was last night at USC and it was fantastic! Here are some of the dresses. The winning one was the gigantic Vegas showgirl outfit with the headdress. I love my job!

Born to do this

2011-02-25T18:25:00.001-05:00

When I saw Mariah Carey in Disney’s Christmas Parade last year all I could think of was how she was born to do this. Her life had all lead up to this moment of her lip-synching on a pre-recorded broadcast that celebrates the most sacchrine, commercial aspects of the holiday season while she was pregnant and dressed like a Christmas ornament in a dress so short that the whole world was her gyno. I’m not being facetious. She was born to do that. I was born to do the job that I have now. That’s the best way I can put it. This job is what I was put on Earth to do.

New Addition!

2011-02-21T08:18:00.003-05:00

Introducing Deputy Awesome! She joined our little family two Fridays ago and she's getting along with everyone like gangbusters! Her first night here she and Cujo fought like, well, cats and dogs but check them out now! Look at her actually hugging Cujo with both of her front paws. Yay for new friends!

Fudge, I miss my cat

2011-01-18T19:16:00.002-05:00

I really do. Gosh darn it, he was just so awesome. So friendly and loving. John and I used to joke that our animals were equally parts dog and cat since Cujo would climb on the backs of furniture and Odin would wait for us when we got home. He knew when the garage door opened, that meant we would come home and there were almost always four little orange feet under the door when we would walk up the stairs. We didn't let him sleep in our bedroom because he would walk all over our faces at like 5 am but without fail he was outside our door at about 6:30 every morning meowing. It was hilarious because he had food and water and access to the litterbox; he just wanted us to watch him go to the bathroom and eat. One of us would open the door and Odin would race down the hallway to the litterbox as if we had just put it down.
I miss him every day and John has been having anxiety dreams about him every other night. I just miss him.

I'm on to your game

2011-01-12T15:00:00.003-05:00

There are several jobs that I've applied to that are just PERFECT for me. Some have turned me down and some haven't replied to me. I've called the non-repliers to ask if they got my resume, cover letter, etc. I just called one organization where I've spoken to the hiring manager before. Here's a rough transcript.
Me: Good afternoon! Is so and so there?
Receptionist: Yes m'am. May I ask who's calling?
Me: Stewart lastname.
Receptionist: Thank you. Please hold while I transfer the call.
**small pause**
I go straight into voicemail.

I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE. I have been a receptionist. Oh, you're avoiding me? Expect me to come by the office. For real.

Caturday

2011-01-09T18:21:00.003-05:00

John, Mike and I went to check out some places that did kitten adoptions on Saturday afternoon. We first went to the county shelter, which has only charges $60 for cats but doesn't do FIV testing. What's up with that? We went to PetSmart to see what organizations had kittens for adoption and there were some young cats, but no kittens. We then went to Wescott Acres, where Cujo and Bodhi used to go to daycare and where we've boarded the dogs and Odin before. They have an actual cat rescue now (when we were looking to adopt 2 years ago and eventually, fortunately got Odin we were interested in getting kittens from Wescott Acres but at that point they only housed cats/ kittens from another rescue organization that was over capacity and that organization totally dragged their feet on our application.) so hopefully we won't be in paperwork limbo like we were before. We decided to only get a kitten from Wescott Acres because we want to support them (they're totally awesome) and the staff and volunteers there know us, so we know that they would only call us if a kitten who would fit with Cujo and Bodhi came in.
John and I discussed it and we aren't getting a kitten to band-aid the hole that Odin's loss has left. The house definitely feels empty without a cat. We liked being cat owners and want another high energy cat who will have fun with two energetic doggie playmates.

Not a winning combination

2011-01-06T02:10:00.001-05:00

High gravity beer and emo music are not my friends tonight. The only thing keeping me from digging up Odin's body and opening his eye and holding him is the sub-freezing temps.

2011-01-05T23:19:00.001-05:00

I'm out on the sofa because John is sleep talking and calling out "Come here! Don't take him! Sugar, don't take him! Come here!" while rapidly patting his thigh. I don't know how Sugar (presumably Allie's dog) fits into the equation but he's obviously talking about Odin.

The right thing and the easy thing are so rarely the same.

That was horrible.

2011-01-05T19:36:00.003-05:00

My biggest fear, since Odin became sick, was that he would die alone and uncomfortable. We took him to the vet tonight to have him put down and requested to be there when the sedative was administered. His liver was so far gone that his blood wasn't clotting and two vet techs and the vet couldn't get an IV in him, so the vet had to kill him by sticking the medicine directly in his heart and we couldn't be around to see that. He was bleeding so badly that they wrapped him in two towels.
His burial was what I wanted, though. This is so gross. I'm sorry. He was still warm and pliant so we let him sleep nice and wrapped up in a little box and he is deep in the ground. I didn't ever want to hold him when he was cold and stiff, or really anything that wasn't nice hot cat body temperature. I kissed his little dead head so much.

Last night with Odin

2011-01-04T22:40:00.003-05:00

I'm going to miss this beautiful eye so much.

"Good night, sweet prince. And flocks of angels sing thee to thy rest." - Horatio in William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act V Scene ii.

"To sleep, perchance to dream: - aye, there's the rub. For in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil must give us pause." Hamlet in William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act III Scene i.

I didn't intend for both of these quotes to be from Shakespeare or Hamlet, but they seem the most fitting.

It's eerie. You can recognize firsts: first house, first kiss, first day of school. It's rare to know when something will be the last: last date before you break up, last time you see someone, last time you go to a store. This is Odin's last night.

This is how a grad student celebrates

2010-12-14T18:22:00.001-05:00

I plan on toasting my successful graduation tonight with a bottle of Andre I got for $4 at Wal-Mart. Aaaaah, being cheap.

Finding out how special my special needs cat is

2010-12-09T15:23:00.002-05:00

Odin has a serious liver malady that his fantastic regular vet can't fix with the normal methods of heavy antibiotics and special food. Since the liver regenerates itself, most problems can be fixed by a low fat, low protein temporary diet and lots of antibiotics to keep the infection, whatever it is, at bay as the liver rebuilds itself. Odin is still incredibly sick and has all the signs of cancer but since his white blood cell count responds to antibiotics the vet doesn't think it's cancer. The vet has ruled out all run of the mill liver problems and suspects that it's a very large (or several large) abscess. She recommended Odin go to a specialist, internist vet and we have an appointment for next week. I knew that Odin had something unusual when the vet, who is not a young vet, kept asking us if he had eaten anything different or been outside because she had never seen symptoms like this in an animal who wasn't poisoned. Last week at the vet the vet tech said she had been working there 3.5 years and had never seen a cat with a liver abscess. Today I went online to look up information on liver abscesses in cats that require surgical intervention. Wanna guess how many articles I found?
TWO.
TWO.
Two articles about it. One was from a small animal vet textbook and one was from an article published in a scholarly journal about 5 dogs and 1 cat who had liver abscesses that needed surgery. WOW.

Cheese would go nicely with this whine.

2010-12-07T22:06:00.003-05:00

I love my husband. I love my husband. I love my husband.
I got these jammies from the kids' section of Target on Black Friday. There were no pink footie pajamas so these neon leopard type print ones were the best I could do. I wore them for the first time on Friday night. John went to bed before I did and I woke him up to show him my cool new sleeping gear. He looked at me and told me I looked like a cow. I was a little taken aback and had to figure out that I was wearing something that was white with black spots. I said something along the lines of "Hmm, maybe we should think about the words that we use" and he mooed at me and went to cuddle and was like, "Come here you cute cow." I reminded him that I, like most women, don't like to be referred to as a cow. He kept mooing and calling me a cow and I reminded him how upset I was when, a few years ago, he referred to my boobs as udders. He thought his joking was adorable and harmless but it really got under my skin. We exchanged some not- heated words about it on Saturday and I returned them on Sunday. I just don't want to be reminded of them, despite their comfiness and John's promises that he liked the way they looked on me.
When I got home from my exam tonight I was talking with John about his day and he said that he told his guy friends at work about "The Cow Incident" and how all of them were taken aback and shocked that I was still with him.
I know he has his pride. I know he isn't romantic. I know this isn't a big deal. I know all of that. I also know that he is paying for my graduate school and I don't make any money at this moment and he doesn't complain about that at all. I wish, in instances like these, that he would be more apologetic and do something to DEMONSTRATE that he's sorry or to acknowledge that most women would have made him sleep on the couch for a week as punishment for assholery of that magnitude but instead of asking him to do anything I changed my contribution to the situation. I don't need flowers and he doesn't like to give gifts. A note, a massage, a prepared meal...any of these things would really be appreciated.
Sorry for the whining. It's just that it really got to me to hear that John's coworkers, who are usually full of happiness and jokes and good natured teasing, were pretty somber about this. Yeah. It's a big deal.

I love Black Friday

2010-11-26T21:49:00.002-05:00

Sure, put on your judgey pants. But there are few better feelings, for me, than saving a significant amount of money (no small deal when you're a 1 income family) on items that are needed and will be used and appreciated by people I love.

17!

2010-11-24T10:26:00.002-05:00

SEVENTEEN people who I love love love will be at our house for Thanksgiving! YAY!!!
The biggest compliment came last Wednesday when a friend whom I hadn't invited to Thanksgiving (but invited to Thanksgiving last year and I'm just a space cadet and wasn't being a good hostess and he slipped my mind this year) called me to ask when Thanksgiving dinner was. WOO HOO!!! I LOVE IT!!!
I love that I'm known, by at least one friend, as someone who will always have an open house for Thanksgiving. That makes me so happy!

Fated to be defenseless in public places

2010-10-19T16:09:00.002-04:00

I'm so frustrated; despite the fact that there is no one at home I'm walking around with a fake smile because I'm so antagonized. For the second time my concealed weapon permit application has been returned. I originally mailed it off with a personal check, not a cashiers' check as they requested. Today's mail just came and it has been returned again because the fingerprints are blurry. Honestly I didn't want to get my CWP. The class was interesting but I have no desire to carry a weapon on me and I don't think my reflexes (like those of an old, heavily medicated cat) would do anything to save me in a situation where I was threatened. I just don't think I was meant to have a permit. Oh well.

DISNEY!!!

2010-10-18T11:00:00.002-04:00

The best thing about the trip to WDW was the fact that Shauna and I kept it a secret and Izzy had no clue at all. As we were driving to Animal Kingdom on Thursday morning we kept asking her to look at the signs and tell us what she thought we were doing. When she figured out we were going to Disney World, instead of having the gigantic head exploding freak out screaming moment we thought she would, she clasped her hands under her chin and said, "Oh, thank you so much! Thank you Mommy! Thank you! I always wanted to go to Disney World when I saw it on the TV! Thank you so much!"
Raising a grateful child: you're doing it right.

uugghhhh

2010-09-28T00:13:00.001-04:00

I just realized that the dogs' last day at daycare was September 1st. This hasn't even been going on for a month, y'all. DAMN.

Probably won't even have the energy to shower.

2010-09-27T23:51:00.002-04:00

I'm going to hate this semester. I just know it. I'm busy. Like, crazy busy. Like, cannot spend time with friends or family busy. John is busy at work. I can just tell we're going to be having "that" fight for basically the rest of 2010. John is wonderful at helping when he can see the value in something. However, when he doesn't, no amount of effort on my part will get him to give me any assistance. There aren't enough hours in the day to get done all the things I need to and I would really like it if he would help me walk the dogs. He doesn't think that it's a big deal. Logic, begging, fighting, pleading (including calling him crying when Bodhi pulled me down when she bolted because she was scared of a car on the road), NOTHING will get him to help me with the dogs on a regular basis. I refuse to have badly behaved dogs. They will get exercised. I just wish he could see it my way and, even if he didn't, I wish that he would acknowledge that it's important to me and help me with it, even if it's not important to him.
I know that he's a spoiled brat. Really, he is. I fully acknowledge that I play a large part in letting him live in a world where he doesn't have to clean up after himself or take responsibility for things that he doesn't like. I also know that, at this point, nothing I can do will change his mind. This has been a problem with us for over a month. I'm just done. I just want to either have more hours in the day to walk the dogs, clean the house, do my regular school work, work at my residency, and work on my thesis or have the money to have the dogs go back to daycare. I'm so drained. Thank God there's is an end in sight.

More muddy goodness

2010-09-26T19:28:00.002-04:00

Love him so much, y'all.

MUD RUN!!!

2010-09-26T16:21:00.000-04:00

I really need to clean more

2010-09-21T22:17:00.001-04:00

John: Where do you want to put the shotgun in our bedroom?
Me: There's a shotgun in our bedroom?
John: Yeah, on the dresser.

Faker

2010-09-08T17:42:00.001-04:00

Odin thinks he has us fooled, but the number of dead cockroaches we've seen in our living room and kitchen in the past few weeks lets me know this "almost blind" thing is a ruse.

First world problems

2010-09-02T07:56:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was the last day for Cujo at doggie daycare. They raised their price for annual daycare by 50% (not a typo. Seriously. 50%) so that had to be nixed. That's basically the last luxury that we have.
I'm going dog walking in the mornings and afternoons. Hopefully this will be enough to tire everyone out. I just hate giving up daycare. Whine whine whine.

This is what happens when I take away their subscription to People magazine.

2010-08-29T19:37:00.003-04:00

The dogs are hot after some neighborhood gossip. Our (incredibly nice and not prone to loudness) next door neighbors are having a very animated discussion outside. They aren't yelling but they're really INTO whatever it is they're talking about. The dogs are as well. Both of them are staring at the neighbors' house and making question mark sounds and running around in circles trying to get my attention to let them out so they can stand at the edge of our fence and stare at the neighbors on their porch.
Way to be subtle, dogs.

Thanks for the reminder

2010-08-24T13:51:00.003-04:00

One of the things that has impressed me most in these initial weeks of my residency is how much the non-elected healthcare decision makers in South Carolina (DHEC employees, doctors, hospital executives) truly do care about maternal and child health and health disparities. They work hard on shoestring budgets to make sure every woman and child is safe, healthy and educated. There is no politics, no religion, no divisive, antagonistic thinking. It's heartening to read emails and attend meetings with people who are passionate about the same things I am.

AND THEN at a DHEC meeting today I heard something that made my jaw drop. South Carolina passed a law in June called "Women's Right to Know", which essentially says that when a woman gets an abortion that is not medically necessary she needs to review certain information and sign and date a form stating that she reviewed that information 24 hours before she can get an abortion. The information is online and at doctor's offices. It is only available in English. People both in and out of DHEC have acknowledged that it needs to be available in Spanish. At a DHEC meeting today a DHEC employee scoffed, "They don't get them.", implying that Hispanic women don't get abortions.

OH. OK. Since "They don't get them", we certainly don't need to provide legal information about a safe and legal medical procedure in a language they can understand. My eyes bugged out of my head. We still have so far to go...

Stuff that message boards have taught me

2010-08-21T20:59:00.002-04:00

One, people still can't spot a scam. I mean, WOW. Yeah, the buyer from Craigslist who wants to send you an international cashier's check for like $3000 more than your old pillows cost if you would please just cash it in your name and send him the money is a SCAM. Holy fudge.
Two, planning a wedding has to mean that the world revolves around you and everyone must be happy for you and give you lots and lots of attention.

FU Ovarian Cyst

2010-08-17T18:49:00.002-04:00

Today I did about 2 hours of really intense yard work, which made my side HURT hurt hurt. Fine, I took some Tylenol. About 4 hours passes. Within an hour I ate a heavy meal, had sex, and did Kenpo from p90x. Now I'm sitting in the dark crying. I hate you SO MUCH, cyst.
Here's hoping alcohol and a hydrocodone I had left over from when I had swine flu make this go away. I have a high pain tolerance but I had to take a minute in the car to get myself together I was crying from pain so much.

Chicken Necker

2010-08-13T13:44:00.000-04:00

One of these things is not like the other...

Cookie Cutter emergency

2010-08-12T14:05:00.002-04:00

From 8 pm last night till about 8:15 this morning my MiL, SiL and aunt bombarded me with demands for cookie cutters. At a little after 8 this morning I met my aunt at a midpoint between our houses and gave her some cookie cutters. This was such a DIRE situation that she didn't even get out of her car and barely slowed down to get them from me.
Basically, if it turns out that there was some Armegeddon type disaster that was prevented by a middle aged lady from SC MacGuyvering some weird contraption, I gave her the cookie cutters to do it.

A first for womankind!

2010-08-12T13:41:00.003-04:00

I think I am the first woman of the facebook generation to get an ultrasound and not post the pictures online.
SOOOO CUUUUTE! Look at that ruptured ovarian cyst! I can see it so clearly! ADORABLE!!! I just can't wait till it's fully expelled in 2-3 menstrual cycles! Oooooh I just can't wait!

Ignorance is bliss, especially for the adult watching 4 year old.

2010-07-16T14:40:00.002-04:00

I'm prepping for a bachelorette party this weekend and today I went to Spencer's to buy some very adult gifts. I'll also be making at least 2 penis cakes. Izzy was unaware of what was around her in Spencer's and I hope she's equally clueless with the cake. Having her go around asking "Where's the penis cake? Is that cake a penis?" is NOT as cute as it sounds.

I'll keep that in mind

2010-07-07T12:33:00.002-04:00

I was over at Shauna's house and Izzy was (of course) playing on my phone. We were playing a game that involved naming animals and spelling their names. One animal was an owl and Izzy got up, went to her cat, leaned in close and said, "What's that, Gerty? Um, Gerty says 'Whatever, I don't even like owls.' "

If I had a desk, this would be a headdesk moment.

2010-07-02T10:14:00.002-04:00

One of my wonderful friends posted her weightloss success on facebook. Lots of people congratulated her, and one person became a total threadjacker. She talked about her weightloss and how she was doing it using a medicine that was similar to adderall. Except she spelled it "aderol". Um, how about we not discuss our off-brand use of prescription drugs in a semi-public forum? This is also something that irks me because I take adderall for ADD and executive functioning disorder, so I hate it when the myth of adults taking it for the weight loss benefits is perpetuated. Also, good to see that the drug intended to help people have academic success has contributed so greatly to her spelling skills.

A few thoughts on tattoos

2010-06-28T17:17:00.004-04:00

Call me old fashioned. Say I'm infringing on a persons right to express themselves. Say I'm afraid of the human body, which is naturally beautiful.
I have 2 tattoos. One of them is on my butt cheek and one of them is between my shoulder blades. I know people can see the one on my back. When I am in professional situations, I cover it up. A collared shirt or a business jacket does the trick.
How about if all the people who had tattoos involving nudity or curse words did the same thing? Either get your tat in a place where it won't be visible or cover it up. Today I was getting a prescription filled and saw a woman who was about my age, maybe a year or so older, with a backless sundress and on her back was huge tattoo of a female angel, completely naked, and like squatting/ spread eagle. 100% anatomically correct.
Art is expression. Tattoos are art. Express yourself all you want. I LOVE my tattoos and want to add more. I'm a body-loving hippe liberal who thinks that the human body is a beautiful instrument. I did NOT want to, or need to, see a drawing of nipples and labia at slightly lower than eye level. Could I look away? Actually, it would be hard. This lady was standing slightly in front of me and we were looking for medicine on the same shelf, so I had to look in her general direction. It would have been alot easier for her to wear a tank top under her dress (or, you know, not own the dress) in order to cover the angel from the neck down. Not that hard.
Anyway, maybe I'm an old lady who is cranky and doesn't know what is cool and just goes around being a self-righteous brat on the internet. Who knows.

None of these words are sexual euphamisms.

2010-06-26T16:41:00.001-04:00

The 41 inch long catfish on my back porch is still alive. To test this theory, you can knock on its head.

Ch-ch-changes

2010-06-25T17:15:00.002-04:00

John and I have changed each other for the better. I mean, we were already perfect, but you know what I mean.

I used to avoid sweating no matter what the cost. I still hate it with a passion. It is SO unladylike. It's nasty and messes up hair and make up and seriously is just the opposite of everything that I like about being a woman. However, I'll sweat for my hubby. We're doing several home improvement projects and working outside in SC makes you fudging SWEAT. I hate it, but I'll do it. We've also started the p90x workout program. Holy sweating crap. The "off" days involve doing really complex stretches and even the stretches make me sweat. This is serious work out stuff.

I'm not the only one who has changed. John has become catty and gossipy and I love it. Three years ago he couldn't care less about other people. Now he texts me all his work gossip. I'm so lucky.

I think it's a generational thing

2010-06-25T17:07:00.002-04:00

Michael Jackson died one year ago today and when I heard that he died I was like, "Ok, a culturally irrelevant child molester who has prescription drug problems is dead." I worked with a woman who was 2 years younger than me and she was like, "Yup, that's just what I thought." Then a co-worker who was about 10 years older than us told us about how we didn't understand, that MJ was a huge pop star, he united people, he was so important.
Ok, cool. And then he went off his rocker and surrounded himself with people who created a world without repercussions, altered his looks so dramatically he was unrecognizable, and engaged in deviant and inappropriate relationships with minors.

As if my blogging weren't random enough

2010-06-25T13:15:00.002-04:00

Random thoughts. And GO!
1) SOOOO I'm taking 2 classes during first summer session and it's taking over my life. Both are really interesting. One is environmental health sciences and one is methods in community assessment. I was warned by several people that the professor who teaches it is crazy hard. Apparently last year was the first year that she taught it and after the final exam several people in the class went to the dean of the school together and complained about her. Yeah. On the first day of class she said that she had made the material easier than last summer. Oh, the poor people last summer. We have 6 assignments due in 4 1/2 weeks. This class has taken over my life.
2) I'm becoming really frustrated at the fact that I can't find a residency. Basically for my final semester I'm supposed to do a residency and have a thesis/ measurable output about the place where I'm doing my residency that relates to what I'm studying in public health. I do this for free. I originally wanted to start my residency in second summer session so I wouldn't have alot of pressure on me in the fall, when I'm taking 3 classes. How about NO ONE whom I contacted about residencies wants to have me as a resident? They don't want to have a grad student working for them for free. FOR FREE. So now I'm still on the hunt for a residency and I can't start it during second summer session so I have to start in the fall and have a really busy/ stressful fall. UGH.
3) My garden is AWESOME!!! I love eating tomatoes, strawberries and zuchinni from my awesome garden. As the summer goes on I'll get more tomatoes, more strawberries, squash, cucumbers, eggplant, basil, green peppers, jalapenos and habaneros. In the fall I plan on pulling out alot of the flowers that are left over from the previous homeowner and planting garlic and onions.

Nail in the bivalve coffin

2010-06-25T01:58:00.002-04:00

You can get hepatitis A from bivalves. Cooking won't make it go away. Bivalves (clams, oysters, mussels, etc.) get hepatitis A from eating poop that has hep A in it. AAAAAaaaand I'm done.

Crossing my fingers

2010-06-22T08:23:00.003-04:00

I'm scheduled to pick up my car from the repair shop at about 11 this morning. This is after initially being scheduled to pick it up on Friday the 11th, then Tuesday the 15th, then Thursday the 17th, then last Friday. Technically I did pick it up last Friday, but picking it up only to return it less than 2 hours later because the battery isn't working doesn't count. So yeah. Considering that my initial consultation regarding the car was two weeks ago today, I'm REALLY looking forward to having it back.

I still love you, cat. I'm not petting him out of love. It makes him uncomfortable. I pet him out of evil.

2010-06-20T21:10:00.001-04:00

What John just said to Odin as he (John) was petting an obviously irked Toonces.

Delicious and nutritious!

2010-06-15T00:18:00.001-04:00

If it weren't for my bastardized white russians (no vodka, just cream liquor and milk) I would get almost no calcium.

TMI

2010-06-15T00:14:00.002-04:00

The yoga part of p90x should not be called Yoga X. It should be called Queefing X. Or Queef o rama. Or You will queef so much your husband will accuse you of forcing them out when you are not.
During one of the upper thigh stretches John was like, "UUUNNH this burns!" and I was like, "Yeah, do you realize this is the EXACT position you like me to be in except I'm on silk sheets?" His response: "Well then you should be good at it."

And IIIIIIIIiiiiiiIIIIII... will always judge YOUUUUUUUU

2010-06-12T21:22:00.003-04:00

WHY DO YOU PLAY THIS SONG AT CELEBRATIONS OF LOVE!?!?!?!?! HMMM???? Could it be the lyrics, "Bittersweet memories/ that's all I'm taking with me"? Or, "We both know I'm not what you need?"
OH, HOW LOVING. HOW FULL OF DESIRE TO BE TOGETHER FOREVER.

Bambi, you stink.

2010-06-10T17:08:00.003-04:00

EWWWWwwwwww. John and Mike went deer hunting over Memorial Day weekend (for those of you well versed in hunting seasons, SquirrelGirl, Mike's grandmother owns a small farm and she got a short term permit to hunt because deer were eating her crops) and got one doe. John brought back about 30 pounds of meat and decided that instead of taking it to a butcher he would prepare it himself. He did a great job of making ribs, steaks, and I was especially proud of his ground meat mastery. It's tough to mix the right combo of meat and fat, but he did it. He used the meat grinder attachment of my KitchenAid mixer to make the ground meat. I have to say it's adorable when he and Mike make jerky or do anything else uber manly and meaty because all of our kitchen appliances and accessories are pink. So John weighed the dear meat on a pink scale and ground it with a pink mixer. Well I had never cleaned or used the meat grinding attachment before. I read the manual and it said that the attachment was dishwasher safe. Great! Into the dishwasher it goes. Lord, that thing STANK. I mean, it just smelled worse than anything I've ever smelled before. I inspected it and realized that you had to take it apart before washing it. Up in the tubes and gears and grater/ screen thing were fine pieces of deer meat and fat and some of the meat had actually turned green.
EWWWW.

Doggie Dreaming

2010-06-08T22:41:00.002-04:00

Cujo does not bark. I wish I could take credit; I got him that way. I have no clue if he just doesn't want to bark or if one of his former owners taught him not to. The only time he will bark is if other dogs are barking. Endearingly, he looks at them when they do it. For example, if someone is coming in through the garage and Cujo is the only dog around, he'll look at the garage door and get really wiggly and excited but not bark. If another dog is there and that dog barks, Cujo will bark and bark and look at the dog, not the garage door, and almost try to get that dog's attention. "Look at me barking! We are barking together! AWESOME!"
Cujo is sleeping next to me and his little feet are twitching and his nose/whiskers are going a mile a minute and he is intermitantly barking. Yay! He's totally dreaming about running around with his doggie buddies.

I picked a great day to watch class from home

2010-06-08T14:38:00.003-04:00

Both of my classes this summer can be taken online, but I greatly prefer to go to the classroom and be there. My car is in the shop today so I had to watch my classes online. Not only do I have a weird stomach thing that makes every burp feel like I'm going to throw up, but my afternoon class is UBER boring. The professor is showing us how to research for our final project and I couldn't imagine sitting in the classroom while she's going over websites. "This is how you search for things on the CDC website." Ugh. SO glad I'm here at home.

Chigger, please.

2010-06-02T00:59:00.001-04:00

John got chiggers from a hunting trip this weekend. GAAAHHHH must bathe must bathe now must bathe forever...

Do you think people would believe me if I said I was keeping kosher?

2010-05-31T12:10:00.002-04:00

I've always liked seafood. I lived on the coast for all of my childhood and we now live about 2 hours away from the Atlantic Ocean. However, Granny and one of my aunts live in Charleston and get delicious fresh seafood all the time. Shrimp, scallop, crabs, I used to want to eat them all. My in laws have an annual custom of going down to the docks in Charleston and buying several hundred pounds of shrimp in the summer and then freezing it and thawing it as needed. Last summer I helped make coconut shrimp and for the first time was involved in cooking shrimp from beginning to end. UGH. Peeling and taking the legs off is fine. But that vein that runs down the back? I always thought it was an urban legend that it was the intestines. Um, it is not a legend. When the shrimper catches some shrimp right after a big meal, you can tell. Washing your foods feces off of itself is a great way to make that food unattractive.
I've given up on shrimp but somehow, in some corner of my mind, I hoped crawfish were different. I've written about my love of them via the Crawfish Festival before. They are at least easier to disassemble than little baby shrimp so taking out the guts was easy to do in one fell swoop. I ate a few until there was one who I didn't thoroughly de-gut. Chewing sand particles that had once been in a crawfish was a one way ticket out of crawfish town.
The one sea animal I've never liked eating was oysters. I know they're a delicacy but to me they just taste like rubber bands. Then again, I've only been offered them when they're steamed or raw. Last night John and I shared a seafood platter and it had oysters on it. No substitutions. They were fried so I figured I could enjoy them. My first bite in I felt that ominous grit in my mouth and, after quick inspection, saw that there was a black spot in the oyster filled with sand. Well, half a black spot. I always thought that spot was like, the dark muscle where the oyster is tethered to its shell. NOPE. It's a stomach.
Shellfish, I think we're done. It's been nice. Not really.

Cutest baby ever!

2010-05-23T13:51:00.003-04:00

His answer was "no."

2010-05-20T20:02:00.001-04:00

My question to John earlier this evening: "Wanna stop looking at porn and give me a foot massage? Since I'm on my period there's no way this could lead to sex."

Put all your money in Kleenex stock

2010-05-04T20:07:00.002-04:00

It really hit me today that Mother's Day marks the anniversary of the last time I saw Mom Mom alive. I don't think Sunday will be an easy day for me, emotionally.

Snob

2010-05-04T19:12:00.002-04:00

I am a complete snob about some things. Fashion/ clothes are one of those things. I'm not label-crazy, I just think that having a wardrobe with classic pieces that complement your figure, instead of whatever is trendy and on sale, is the best way to go through life. One of the best things about living in DC was the ability to shop at stores like Filene's Basement (R.I.P.), American Apparel and H&M. Filene's was my biggest love. Like I said, I'm not a label junkie, but finding $180 super designer jeans for $35 or Burberry, Coach, de la Renta or Chanel scarves for a few dollars more than a full priced scarf from Gap made my day.
I am a huge proponent of the fact that you don't have to spend alot of money to look nice. One of my friends from middle school ended up living close to me in DC and we reconnected and became even closer than when we were younger. Her family had more money than I can ever imagine. Just boatloads. She had no problem telling me about her designer bags and shoes. I had no problem hearing about it.
One summer afternoon we were at the pool and I had on a pair of designer sunglasses I got at Filene's. She looked at the name on the side and said, "Halston? Is that a knock-off brand?" No. No it isn't.

Beginning of my birthday celebration!

2010-05-04T08:24:00.003-04:00

This weekend was AWESOME!!! I love tradition. If I do one thing once I feel like I have to repeat it over and over again because it's "tradition." Last year John and I were living apart (He was working down here and we hadn't sold our first house so I was living in the first house and working at my old job) and I would come down every weekend and we would do some type of housework/ remodeling project together. All I wanted for my birthday weekend was to NOT have to paint or sand or hammer for all of Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I wanted to go strawberry picking, because I love strawberries and when I was little we used to go and it just seems like a cute, fun thing to do. Also, I saw ads for a crawfish festival in downtown Columbia and I really wanted to go because I am a dork and totally into cheesy festivals. (I dragged my whole family to the Okra Strut last year. Go me!) Well, the crawfish festival was AWESOME!!! They shut down several blocks of Columbia and there is a ton to do at the festival. They have bands on two stages, but the stages are far enough apart that you can still have a conversation and hear yourself think. There was a ton of Bud and Bud Light but there was also, to John's delight, a stand that had the snobby/ weird beers so he could drink his snobby beer and be happy. And the crawfish! OH. EM. GEE. This was my first time eating crawfish and there were so many people sitting at the tables under the main tent that John and I had to sit on the sidewalk, like several dozen other people. We had no clue how to eat crawfish so we turned to another young couple next to us and chatted with them as they explained it to us. It was SO wonderful! The crawfish are live and steamed right in front of you, then have a ton of spices dumped on them, and away they go into a big styrofoam container for your enjoyment.

Well, since we did that once, we must now do it every year. I had been talking up my (first) birthday weekend for weeks: strawberry picking followed by the crawfish festival. On Friday night John was talking about his weekend plans and he mentioned how he wanted to work on home improvement stuff with one of his friends in the morning, then go to the crawfish festival. I got a little sad because I really wanted to pick strawberries. One of my aunts said she'd go strawberry picking with me and I called the strawberry farm to check their hours. Guess what? They were closed on Saturday to allow more berries to ripen! YAY!!!!!!!!!! No worries about missing berry picking with my sweet husband! I slept in on Saturday while John and his buddy did some work on our deck. The three of us headed to the crawfish festival and picked up two friends of ours along the way. Two MORE of our friends met us there, as well as our roommate and several of her work buddies. We had quite a group! The weather was PERFECT. It was in the mid 80s but the rain that has been ravaging the mid-South left us with some cloud cover, so it wasn't super hot. Everyone (minus me) got a beer and I stood in line to get crawfish. Two people in our group held a spot for us at the table and we sat down to dig in! DELICIOUS!!! It cracks me up because about half of the people were like, "Um, this is good, but it's too much work for such little meat." I'm so glad I grew up eating crabs! First, eating a crab is WAY more complex than eating a crawfish. With crawfish you twist off the torso and you're done. With crabs it's take off the legs, eat the claws, take off the apron, take off the top, take out the lungs and guts...crawfish are easy! After some delicious crawfish John told me the most beautiful words I could ever hear that day: "I'll be the DD." WOO HOO!!! I had one Bud Light (wow, that stuff really is water) and two beers from the snobby beer selection. There's a high gravity beer called Wild Blue that is DELICIOUS. That plus one shot made me a very happy girl.

I can't wait to do it again next year!

Ugh NPH

2010-05-02T13:51:00.002-04:00

I have never seen one episode of "How I Met Your Mother." Neither has John, to the best of my knowledge. John's co-workers are all males and are as metrosexual as men in South Carolina can be. I mean, I know metrosexual is an idea that is about 5 years old but, like most trends, it came to SC several years late. Also, by metrosexual, I mean men who care about clothes being ironed and belts matching shoes. Anyhoo, their reference book for all things male is NPH/ Barney Stinson's "Bro Code". It is such misogynistic drivel. "Bros don't cuddle." "Bros always leave the seat up for other bros." "A bro shall always alert another bro to the presence of a chesty woman. Such alerts shall not be verbal."
For God's sake, men. This crap is such...crap.

Fantasy

2010-05-02T00:48:00.002-04:00

I wish all of my friends lived with me. I wish that our house was about 50% bigger and maybe had a bigger kitchen, or a second kitchen. That would be so awesome. We could all just hang out all the time.

One of my favorite days of the year

2010-05-01T12:33:00.002-04:00

Today is totally one of my favorite days of the year. More on it later!

Nom nom nom

2010-04-30T13:05:00.003-04:00

Leftover, homemade, from scratch, chocolate and vanilla cake. Butter, cocoa power, eggs, sugar, flour...DELICIOUS. Mixed with homemade whipped cream. Yup, real whipping cream with a little bit of powdered sugar. Oh, and also in the whipped cream? About 5 shots of cream liquor. YUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

Second serving of poison, please!

2010-04-25T13:11:00.002-04:00

That is what my animals would say if they could talk. Cujo's love of outside poison has been well documented. Today John sprayed inside the house for bugs and Odin is now meowing unhappily while locked in Cujo's crate because he thinks that poison is just so yummy scrum and wouldn't stop licking it. Poison companies, is it possible to make bug killer that my animals don't think is super delicious?

"They" = "me"

2010-04-24T12:49:00.003-04:00

Y'all know how I like to go super Martha Stewart all the time, right? Everything from scratch, clean house, crafty, have a vegetable garden, etc. For Easter I did adorable cakes shaped like flower baskets and for the first time ever, did some real cake decorating. Not just slathering (like buttercream or 7 minute frosting) or dripping (like petit four frosting) but real decorating with like, icing couplers and tips and patterns. I learned I can't make leaves but I do want to take a Wilton decorating class at Michael's or AC Moore or wherever offers it. Anyhoo, I used the Wilton recipe for decorator frosting. The only real difference between it and buttercream is that since decorator frosting has to be totally white the fat in it is lard, not butter. Butter would cause it to have an off white/ yellow shade. Well, OK, the recipe technically called for shortening, but all John had in the cupboard was lard. DELICIOUS LARD. OH. MY. GOSH. I just ate the last bit of leftover frosting. I'm NEVER going back to butter.

Dirty mind or stating the obvious?

2010-04-24T12:13:00.003-04:00

These shoes look like vaginas, right? That loop shape on the footbed is TOTALLY a labia. Like 80% of the chicks at school have these shoes and oh MAN do they look like freaking vaginas. The shoes, I mean.

PRICELESS face at 1:13

2010-04-21T21:11:00.002-04:00

End of semester craziness is setting in. Check out this super happy time video!

I love where I live

2010-04-12T17:06:00.002-04:00

This pic was taken a week or so ago when I was doing a wine promotion for my SiL. I LOVE living in the south. I really can't imagine myself anywhere else, ever. Where else would you find a man with a BMI in the triple digits wearing a Jesus shirt and buying enough beer and wine coolers to fill a wading pool? NO WHERE.

Barely...containing...excitement...

2010-04-11T23:31:00.002-04:00

Two of my favorite people went on what I consider to be a date tonight! WHEEE!!! Person 1, Person 2, John and I were at a restaurant eating a late dinner and...tah-dah! Person 1 very decisively told the server that he would pay for person 2's dinner. It was all I could do to not clap my hands and squeal. I buried my head in John's shirt to keep from screaming. I have no poker face.

If/ when P1 and P2 have their first kiss I better be in another zip code. If not I will totally be standing right next to them and staring and pointing.

Covet covet covet

2010-04-09T22:42:00.003-04:00

A friend and her traveling companion on a recent vacation. It is so hard to not troll through petfinder after seeing this picture.

Tanning

2010-04-08T22:46:00.003-04:00

I don't lie to John. Not little white lies, not money lies, no lies. First, I have NO poker face. Secondly, I wouldn't want him to treat me that way. I mean, he is the only adult I will have to live with for the rest of my life. I want to trust him and vice versa. Well, about three weeks ago I signed up for a tanning package and didn't tell John. I paid for it with my credit card and hoped that I could just get some color (aside for the lovely shade that I was of between Casper and skim milk) and do a little relaxing. Uh, the universe did not like me lying to John. A few hours after my first tanning session this is what my back looked like: Do ya see the two white lines going down it? The redness isn't really captured here, but the stripes between the tanning lights definitely are. Lesson learned, Universe.

Can you tell I'm procrastinating?

2010-04-07T21:28:00.002-04:00

I should be doing research for my paper on the history of eugenics. I think it's basically proof that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Who doesn't want a society without jails/ asylums/ people who can't access resources? Ohhhh, but to get to that wonderful society you probably shouldn't forcibly sterlize blind and deaf people.

Too bad when I google "history of eugenics" I get fifty online essays written by high schoolers that basically say eugenics = abortion = MURDER.

-iley is to 2010 what -ayden was to 2008 and 2009

2010-04-07T19:18:00.002-04:00

Riley? Kiley? (Or Kylie or whatever) Miley? All of these androgynous kids will have older siblings/ cousins/ playmates named Ayden, Kayden, Jayden, and Payton.

Nobody will like your baby's name

2010-04-07T19:10:00.002-04:00

I really dislike names that have too many "i" or "e" sounds in them. To me, they just sound like they never grow up. Can you picture a grandmother named Kiley? Or reporting to a boss named Skylar? They just sound so young.
On the other hand I really don't like old people names for babies. (Disclaimer: If I have a girl she will be named Louise after Mom Mom.) Henry? Mildred? Agnes? No thank you.

Stewart, Stewart, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

2010-04-07T14:36:00.002-04:00

I hate to love gardening. I love to hate gardening? Despite being pretty hard-core domestic, I've never gotten into gardening. My Mom and Mom-Mom were super into it, as are my MiL and SiL. Cook, clean, host parties, do needlework...I just never really wanted to garden. Obviously I didn't garden when I lived in the city and the house we lived in in Greer just wasn't really a gardening kind of house. First, it was on clay. Red, hard, clay. We lived on a very slight incline and there were two deep trenches on either side of the house where the water would run down after it rained. Nothing wanted to live in that clay. I saw neighbors have sod professionally installed, and have sprinkler systems, and within one year their yards looked barren.

The wife of the couple who lived in this house before we did was obviously way into gardening. The left side of our yard is contained by a split rail fence and in it there are some nice trees and some hardy (because I sure haven't done a darn thing to them) flowering bushes. It looks great and hasn't needed any attention aside from an occaisional waving of the hedge trimmer. Our house now is on a steep incline and the right side of the yard has two stepped gardens that were full of flowers. Since I didn't move into this house until July of last year, I really didn't have time to do anything with the stepped gardens. They became full of weeds and ivy and some steriod-pumping mint. I recognized three rose bushes (with pink roses! YAY!) and a sage bush, but that was it. Late last summer I decided I should do something with the garden, so I bought a big ol' container of spectracide and sprayed it everywhere. I couldn't tell what was a weed and what was supposed to be there. When I got done the hours of hand-pumping poison, I basically decided that this garden would become survival of the fittest. Whatever could live through the spectracide would just continue to live in the garden.

I've always liked the idea of a victory garden, though. Being relatively self-sufficient and having yummy fruit and vegetables seems like a cool thing to do. This year for my birthday (in early May) I asked my MiL, SiL, Shauna and one of my aunts to come over and help me with the garden. I didn't want them to do it for me, I just wanted people who knew what they were doing to tell me what to pull up and what can stay. When I told this to my MiL, she sprang into action. She bought me a truckload of mulch, and another truckload of mushroom compost and topsoil. One Saturday a few weeks ago she and her sister just showed up, insisted that I keep working on my homework, and weeded both gardens. YAY!!! They got six bags of weeds and dead stuff! They pulled up some flowers, too, which is fine with me. They left me with homework to till in the mushroom compost. Uh, mushroom compost is basically manure. Over the course of 2 days I spread 560 pounds of mushroom compost over the garden, then took a shovel and turned and turned and turned it into the dirt. I felt like Scarlett O'Hara! Then on Good Friday my family came back and helped me plant all kinds of cool stuff that they said would grow well: lantana (a flower that my Mom and Mom Mom like to plant because it does well in hot weather with little water), strawberry bushes, green bell peppers, tomato plants, jalapeno peppers, 2 kinds of squash, cucumbers, eggplant, habanero pepper, and thai hot pepper.

Now I water that garden for like 10 minutes every day and I just can't get enough of being out there. I spread cedar mulch over most of it, but the peppers and tomatoes apparently need the acidity of pine straw, so I bought three bales of that today. Here's the thing: I still hate gardening. I also now hate weeds and disorder. I do like feeling strong and accomplished when I get done a big task, like spreading all that compost. I hear myself saying, "I hate gardening" when I'm picking little weed after little weed. Who knows? Maybe in a few years I'll be really good at it, like my SiL and Shauna, and maybe in a decade or so I'll be showing the youngins how it's done.

Also, I promise to post pics! I promise the garden transformation would be more dramatic with before and after pics, but I always realize this about everything (laying down floor, stripping wallpaper, painting rooms, decorating the house, etc.) when the project is done, so there's no chance for a before pic.

One track mind

2010-04-06T21:25:00.003-04:00

Whenever I see/ hear men with European accents, I immediately think of their uncircumcised penis. This made working at a company based in Germany really amusing.

Counting down the days

2010-03-26T22:07:00.001-04:00

Lent, be over quickly! There's so much crap I want to say!

Lieutenant Dan, ice cream...

2010-03-24T22:50:00.002-04:00

Tonight we had dinner at Jay and Shuana's house since my insanely busy weekend of working and studying forced me to miss their son Jack's first birthday party this weekend. I brought Jack some birthday presents (oooh, sensible clothes! Just what babies want.) and Jay made an insanely delicious chicken parmasean. As dinner was cooking we went outside to enjoy the last few minutes of a beautiful day. An ice cream truck was just leaving the neighborhood and Izzy didn't recognize what it was till her Mom said something to the effect of "Do you hear the ice cream truck?" At that point it was too far out of the neighborhood to get it. A few minutes later it was just Izzy and I outside and we heard the truck again. I picked her up and ran to try and catch it but 1) I didn't have any cash on me and 2) it was one subdivision over. Izzy was a good sport and told everyone our adventure of running to the ice cream truck but it being too far away.
Later on, John and I were preparing to leave, hugging, saying thanks, talking about future plans, all that. Izzy hugged me and told me that she would miss me, that she wanted me to stay, etc. It was after 8:30 so she was super tired. Like that whiny kid quasi-functional tired. As she walked away from me to curl up on the sofa I heard her say three words under her breath: "Ice Cream Truck."

Flats, do you really want to hurt meee? Do you really want to make me cryyyy?

2010-03-23T11:05:00.003-04:00

Welcome to my cankly world. Do you see those sores? They aren't from heels or boots or sandals. They are from FLATS. FLATTY FLAT FLATS. I have no problems with heels. Well, minus 2 Steve Madden pairs I owned, but I don't really count that because 2 women have told me, without prompting, that Steve Madden heels are always uncomfortable for them, too. I'm 2 years late to the trend party and started wearing leggings. You can't really wear heels with leggings because, well, that looks too street-walker-er for me. Do you see what a cute pair of flats did to my feet? And this was while wearing little protective socks.

Tuesdays

2010-03-23T11:04:00.003-04:00

Tuesdays this semester are always weird. I only have one class on Tuesdays, and it's in the early afternoon. By Tuesday the weekend cleaning that I've done is always quasi-undone and I'm itching to get my mitts around a Swiffer. My Tuesday class basically just breaks up my Tuesday of cleaning and doing homework.

Reunited, and it feels so gooood...

2010-03-22T20:32:00.002-04:00

Last week Toonces ran away. I posted a little about it. He is all black, no ID on him, and scared of people. Gina and I searched for him for about 40 minutes outside. It was super frustrating. We could hear his bell, but as we called his name he moved further and further into the woods behind our house. I totally thought that cat was gone forever.

Friday night John went outside to see if UPS had delivered something for him and I heard him yell, "Oh my God, Toonces!" Toonces was outside our door. John tried to get him, but when John's hand was around him Toonces freaked out and dashed away. John ran in, instructing us to turn on all the outside lights. He got some cat food and a dog leash. Mike and I watched through a side window as John spent several minutes patiently sitting and coaxing Toonces to come to him. John finally got his hands on the cat and that animal freaked out. John had Toonces pinned to the ground and Toonces was surging and struggling to get away. I saw John get the leash on Toonces and start running towards the house. I opened the front door and kicked/ shooed the other animals (Cujo, Bodhi and Odin) who were highly interested in what was happening. Toonces seriously looked like the Tazmanian Devil. Because the leash was cutting off his air supply his hissing was desperate and otherwordly. He is all black and his eyes were rolling around in his head. His teeth were bared and all four of his paws were rigidly out and swinging from his body. I could see every claw. He was fighting John so viciously that the leash was more like a pendulum. Mike and I stood back from the door and John threw Toonces into the house in an area that wasn't too near other animals. Toonces had so much momentum that the first place he set foor in our house was the 6th stair to upstairs.

He's back! John is a hero!

Oh my Dog

2010-03-21T18:11:00.002-04:00

Hey Cujo, your life would be so much better if you didn't think that ant poison was a delicious treat. You wouldn't run outside every 20 minutes to take an explosive dump and you could actually play outside with your other dog friends. I know that when you stand at the back door and dance and pant and get anxious and stare at me, it means that you either have a giant #2 locked and loaded or you are just jonesing for some more poison buffet.