2nd post of the day!

House is on tonight! House is on tonight! Hi-ho-the-derry-oh! House is on tonight!

Sing it with me! House is on tonight! House is on tonight! Hi-ho-the-derry-oh! House is on tonight!

YAY! I have missed me some House. Stupid World Series, anyways. Who cares? By the way, who won?

And House has become even more precious to me (my own, my preciousssssss) now that I am hearing rumors that Studio 60 is going to be canceled. Please! Say it ain't so! Why do they have to cancel a show I like and look forward to? Why?

I'm in great shape for NBPM! This is the 2nd day I've had 2 posts in one day!

In preparation for NaBloPoMo

I have been trying to be better about posting to get ready for NaBloPoMo, which starts tomorrow.

My mom said that she didn't like the badge I chose for NBPM (the other is just a pain to type), so here is a new one. Better, Mom?

I have been working on a list of things to write about and now I just need to write them down so my addled brain doesn't lose them in the piles of other stuff that is floating around. Actually, no time like the present.

Nov 1: First day of NBPM
Nov 2:
Nov 3:
Nov 4:
Nov 5:
Nov 6: Day in the Life, probably live-blogged
Nov 7: Election Day
Nov 8: post-election day
Nov 9:
Nov 10:
Nov 11: *sob* *choke* *gasp* My baby is 15 months old
Nov 12: no longer hitting the bottle
Nov 13:
Nov 14:
Nov 15:
Nov 16:
Nov 17:
Nov 18:
Nov 19:
Nov 20: foot check-up appointment
Nov 21:
Nov 22:
Nov 23: Thanksgiving
Nov 24:
Nov 25:
Nov 26:
Nov 27: Emily's 15 month pediatrician appointment
Nov 28:
Nov 29:
Nov 30: Thanks, God! It's over!

See? This won't be so bad! I already have 10 posts planned. That's 1/3rd of the way there. Of course, that means I still have to come up with 20 other posts, but we won't think about that now.

Channeling my inner Donna Reed

Today I was very productive.

I did two loads of laundry, cleaned the kitchen, vacuumed the basement stairs, worked over 3 hours on my new job, arranged a payment plan for the portion of my surgery not covered by my insurance, made chocolate chip cookies (Mike will be so excited!), fed Emily breakfast and lunch, and took Emily outside for a walk around the backyard.

Impressive, no?

I also called my doctor to set up an appointment to go see him late this afternoon. This weekend, I was helping Mike in the basement and a large piece of dowel (actually, a sledgehammer handle, but only 18 or so inches long) fell and landed on my left foot. The one I just had operated on. It landed about 1/2 an inch from my incision and left a nice goose egg. It hurt. A lot. Still does, in fact. So, I called and said I thought he should probably take a look at it to calm my fears that I've just destroyed his hard work.

Bad news...

I talked with my Michigan parents yesterday afternoon. My mom had left a message on Thursday and I didn't get a chance to call her back until yesterday. While we were talking, she mentioned that Larry, my grandmother's sister's husband (or my great-uncle) is very ill.

I saw him over Labor Day weekend and he seemed to be doing OK (for an 89-year-old), but apparently between then and now he had a massive heart attack. He's home now and is receiving hospice care. So, it sounds like I will be needing to make a trip to Michigan soon to attend a funeral.

I remember spending time over at Larry and Almyra's house when I was a kid. I spent 6 weeks of every summer visiting my dad and (step) mom in Michigan. My mom is a registered nurse and she was working in a hospital that scheduled her for different shifts, some of which started very very early. On those days, I would get up with my mom and drive into work with her and she would drop me off at Larry and Almyra's to stay for the day, or until my dad got out of work. I would hang out with my cousins (they lived nearby) and play.

When I saw Larry in September, I had a hard time reconciling the frail old man (with lots of ear hair) with the man I remember from my summers in Michigan. I have the same type of disconnect when I see my grandpa. He's also getting up there in years (he's 87? I think) and every time I see him, he is more and more frail.

I don't want to go back and be a kid again (didn't much care for it the first time), but I want the people I love in my life to stay the same. By people, I mean adults. I want Emily to grow up, but once you reach adulthood, then stop! No more getting older!

If I had $1,000,000, etc

If I had $1,000,000 I would:

• You know what I would do if I had a million dollars? I would invest half of it in glorious mutual funds and then take the other half over to my friend Asadulah who works in securities...
• I would relax... I would sit on my ass all day... I would do nothing.
• I'd buy you a house
• I'd buy you furniture for your house
• I'd buy you a k-car (a nice reliant automobile)
• I'd build a tree fort in our yard.
• you could help, it wouldn't be that hard.
• maybe we could put a refrigerator in there.
• I'd buy you a fur coat (but not a real fur coat that's cruel)
• I'd buy you an exotic pet (like a llama or an emu)
• I'd buy you john merrick's remains (all them crazy elephant bones)
• I'd buy your love
• we wouldn't have to walk to the store
• we'd take a limousine cause it costs more
• we wouldn't have to eat kraft dinner. (but we would!)
• I'd buy you a green dress (but not a real green dress, that's cruel)
• I'd buy you some art (a picasso or a garfunkel)
• I'd buy you a monkey (haven't you always wanted a monkey?!)
• I'd be rich

AND...

• I would be at the BNL concert RIGHT NOW!!!!
  

Sigh.

But I'm not, so I'm not. Many thanks to Office Space and the Barenaked Ladies for the loan of the quotes/lyrics.

*************************************************
Mike's desktop PC went to its great reward this evening. Near as he can figure, either the motherboard or the processor died. He can't test that theory because he doesn't have another motherboard that would accept the processor or another processor that can go on that motherboard. He built that desktop before we got married (in 2002), so it is old by pretty much any standard, but we really don't have the resources right now to repair it. We're borrowing an external USB drive enclosure to rescue the data on the hard drive, specifically our MS Money file that has all our checking account information from the beginning of time in it.

**************************************************
My step stool arrived today. It is from Tots Only. Please go there and buy something to support Ben. The stool is amazing - totally rock solid and very well crafted. And cute! Cute doesn't begin to describe it. I have unpacked it and put it in the bathroom for Emily to use when she gets to the potty/hand washing stage. And toothbrushing. I would take pictures, but then I'd have to upload them and I don't really have the energy for that tonight.

**************************************************
November is National Blog Posting Month or NaBloPoMo. I have decided to participate in an effort to make myself post more frequently and self-censor less. And also to test my memory to its outermost limits. I always think of things that I could post about and then I forget when I actually sit down at my pc. Tonight's laundry list of topics is a good example of the brain dump you can expect in November. I expect I will wind up littering my house with random notes jotted to myself with topic ideas. I am not up on the official list at fussy.org, but I'm sure I will be soon.

*****************************************
I quit my job today. Not the new one, the one at the drug store. I have been out on disability leave since Sept 19 and was scheduled to go back Nov 7. I decided that I don't like the job all that much, I have a new job that pays more than 33% more than the drug store job, the drug store job was stressing me out and really wasn't worth it and so for all those reasons and a ton more, I decided not to go back. I went in and told my jerky manager that I wasn't coming back. He wasn't suprised. I'd been giving off some major dissatisfied vibes, and I had told a bunch of people in the pharmacy department about my swank new work-at-home job, so I'm sure he'd heard about it before I showed up. Anyways, it's a relief that I don't have to do that stuff any more. I will miss some of the people I met there, but for the most part, it was more trouble than it was worth. And I was making no money there! If I had asked Jerky Manager for a raise, I might have gotten 30 cents an hour. Woo-hoo! Break out the filet mignon, baby! Or not.

Along the same vein, one of the managers of my new job called today and said that there are a bunch of new projects on the horizon and would I be interested in working more than 20 hours a week? Well, um, yeah.

Mike, of course, is concerned about balancing, but there are a lot of ifs tied to the proposed increase so we'll wait and see what happens.

I've started doing work for the new job and it's very fun. Complex and somewhat stress inducing in that Please-God-don't-let-me-screw-this-up kind of way, but I have been enjoying the little bit I have done so far. There's a great satisfaction factor in all this. I can look back and see that I have actually accomplished something. That is one of my favorite things. I love to be able to see that where I am now is better than where I was when I started.

I also resigned from the Secret Shopping company I was working for today. I didn't say much (or anything) about this on the web, but I had been doing some work for a Secret Shopper company. I would go to a store and pretend to be a customer and then report back to the company what happened during the interaction. I was mostly doing secret shopping for the local cellular companies and I was getting tired of the subterfuge required. Like, I had to pretend that I was a tech-savvy consumer and wanted all the bells and whistles (texting, music, camera, video...) on a cellular phone. I hated the constant worry about being identified as the secret shopper (and it happened today; the company called me to tell me that one of the reps identified me as the secret shopper during one of shops I did last week). And, frankly, I just don't care that much about the cellular industry to be listen to the same sales pitch. Over and over. And over. I am still registered with another secret shopping company because that one has contracts with some really cool stores and I would love to be able to shop there. For free. We'll see. I've been registered for a couple of months and only seem to get emails about fast food shops in Plattsburgh (8 hours from here).

Wow. Holy diarrhea of the mouth, Batman! It's 10 pm. That's my bedtime. Good night!

Lucky, lucky, lucky

Updated below...

Not only did I win a very cool step stool last week, I just won a Fandango movie ticket!

I signed up to use Blingo as my homepage a couple of weeks ago and today, while I was searching for a trivia answer for the local country station's website (to get more points), I won a Fandango movie ticket!! It was the strangest thing, I hit enter to do my search for Sara Evans and the page that came up next was most definitely NOT about Sara Evans.

After I won, they had a note on the home page that I had won. It was my 15 minutes of fame.



You can't really see it in the small image, but click on it and you can see that I won!! :) The friend that won with me was Busy Mom, whose link I used to sign up.

So, if you haven't already signed up for Blingo, you should! I thought it was a bunch of hooey, but it's not!

Now, here's hoping that my luck stretches to me winning tickets to tomorrow's BNL concert. I entered at another radio station's website. They were supposed to do the drawing at noon. Fingers crossed!

Well, I didn't win the BNL tickets. Rats. But, I was just out doing some work for my new job and I won another Fandango ticket. WOO-HOO!! Date night, here we come!

Ok. Back to work! Ta-ta!

Grounds for Divorce*

My husband called me this morning to ask me to guess what he had in his hand.

I thought of a dirty reply, but managed to restrain myself. Barely.

The answer was the most recent episode of Battlestar Galactica.

Mike and I had been watching BSG on SciFi (as part of 'Freakshow Friday', Mike's name for the Friday night line-up on SciFi) until Mike's parents cancelled the subscription to Dish Network that we had been shamelessly mooching for a year.

At first, I would sit on the couch and cross-stitch or read, ignoring what Mike was watching. But, I started to get engrossed in the action. Battlestar Galactica is a fantastic show. It is well written, with interesting characters (especially the women,are not the stereotypically vapid TV women), great storylines... Seriously, it is one of the best TV shows on the air now. TV Guide agrees with me, it's frakkin' awesome! (My one complaint about BSG is they have replaced the 'f-word' with the word 'frak'. The characters are not afraid of using the word and it annoys the heck out of me. No idea why)

Anyways, because we don't have Dish Network (or cable), we can't watch BSG. Mike was lamenting this fact with his uncle at work last week and his uncle offered to record it on a DVRW for us. YAY! Bring on the BSG!

Unfortunately, we won't be able to watch it until at least Wednesday evening. Tonight I have another training session for my new job and tomorrow night I'm going to a stamping party being given by one of my girlfriends.

Mike told me that he was going to watch it without me.

I told him that was grounds for divorce. Hopefully he will wait for me. He'd better!

*The grounds for divorce stuff is kind of a joke between Mike and I. We agreed when we got married that we aren't getting divorced. My parents are divorced and I won't put myself or my children through that. So basically, there aren't any grounds for divorce with us. Mike's biggest grounds for divorce for me is having restaurant staff sing Happy Birthday to him. He hates that. Every time we're out and someone is being sung to he reminds me that he'll divorce me if I ever do that to him. Tempting... but, no. **

** That's a movie quote. Any one know from where? :)

Lucky #57

Alternate title: "I won, I won! Hot Damn, I won!" "It's a MAJOR award!"

This is my 57th post. It's hard to believe I have found something (or nothing) to write about 56 times now.

I just got an email that I won!

And not 800 free samples of V1agra. Or 3 Russian mail-order brides. Or the new super diet pill.

No, I won something really cool!

I won a step-stool from Cool Mom Picks! Specifically, I won this one.

I am so excited! I never, ever win anything!

I guess I can't say that anymore. Because I won! And it is something useful! Unlike the 3 Russian mail-order brides. (Which wouldn't do me much good. Unless they want to take over the cleaning and cooking.)

Campaign for Real Beauty

When I was a teenager, I had no self-esteem. I thought I was ugly and stupid. This wasn't for lack of trying on my mom's part (Hi Mom! Love you!). She always told me and my sister that we were beautiful, smart, wonderful, etc. She wouldn't let us call each other mean names or tell each other that we were dumb or stupid.

However, for some reason, I still didn't think I was worth anything. It took me several bad relationships and a lot of introspection and counseling before I realized that I had value as a person.

It is because of my experiences in the pit of self-esteem-less-ness (new word alert!) that I am very interested in Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty and their seminars to teach young girls the value of self-esteem.

I do not want Emily to ever think that she is anything less than priceless. I want her to know that she is a miracle and a gift from God. I want her to understand that everyone is valuable. And I want her to know and understand that stuff because of her value, not because her mom told her to. (I always kind of thought that my mom's opinion didn't count as much because she's my mom - she's supposed to love me. It's her job. Again, hi mom!)

All of the above is another long lead-up to my point: Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty has a new video out and I think it is fascinating. It shows the evolution of a model from a regular looking person to the end product we see in our advertisements: a super-model.

I don't know how to do the embedding thing where the video plays directly from my blog (help, anyone?), so here is the link.

I totally forgot what I was going to say!

Argh! I hate when this happens. I had something I was going to write about today and I have totally forgotten it.

Seriously.

I have no idea what it was.

Hm. Oh, well. Guess it wasn't that important after all.

Well, I can tell you that so far I have read 2 of my books that I got last week. I will start the 3rd one when I sign out of here.

I've got nothin' else. See ya later!

Hi! I'm EPbH!

Julie, of Julilioquy , performed her party trick on my name, as well as on Mike and Emily's names.

It is very cool.

Her party trick is to write people's names in Cyrillic. Erin turns out EPbH.

Thanks, Julie! Check out the rest of her post for Mike, Emily and I here, and for the other performances of this trick here and here and here and here.

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I don't have much else to talk about today. Mike, Emily and I are all suffering with a cold. Emily's progressed into an ear infection (joy!). Both Mike's and my parents are sick, too. My dad was the first to get sick and then Mike's parents got sick. Mike, Emily and I caught his parent's cold and then we infected my dad with our cold as he was just getting over the one he and my mom had been sharing. Whoops! Sorry, Dad!

I am finally feeling as though I might be able to muster some energy (why, oh why do I have to lose my energy when I'm sick? Isn't it enough that my throat hurts and I'm croaking like a frog? Do I have to feel like a limp noodle, too?!) to get some stuff done around here.

Or maybe not.

Yay! Books!

Mike's uncle's girlfriend offered to give me some of her old books a while ago. I said (of course), sure! I'd love them. She said that they would drop them off sometime while they were out and about.

Last night, when I got home, this was waiting for me in my bedroom.

At first, I was really mad at Mike for arbitrarily boxing all of my books (you can't really tell, but there are two piles of books behind the box that are as tall as the box). And then I remembered that Michele and Bill were going to drop off books for me. And then I was very very excited.

I went through and pulled all the books out of the boxes and put them on the bed so I could write down what was there. Below is a picture of all the books laid out on the bed.



Impressive, no? Looking through them, I think there are only a couple that I have already read.

Here's what I got:

Dean Koontz The Husband
Tami Hoag Kill the Messenger
Tami Hoag Prior Bad Acts
Nicholas Sparks The Wedding
Mary Higgins Clark Two Little Girls In Blue
Tess Gerritsen Vanish
Michael Connelly Chasing The Dime
Robert Tanenbaum Hoax
Sidney Sheldon Are You Afraid of the Dark?
Perri O'Shaughnessy Case of Lies
Iris Johansen Count Down
Richard Montanari The Rosary Girls
John Grisham The Broker
Patricia Cornwell At Risk
Patricia Cornwell Trace
Patricia Cornwell Predator
VC Andrews Child of Darkness
VC Andrews Girl in the Shadows
VC Andrews April Shadows
Mario Puzo The Family
Mark Weingardner The Godfather Returns
Dan Brown The DaVinci Code
Dan Brown Angels and Demons
Sandra Brown White Hot
Sandra Brown Chill Factor
Steve Martini The Arraignment
Steve Martini Double Tap
David Baldacci Camel Club
David Baldacci Hour Game
Nora Roberts Red Lily
Nora Roberts Northern Lights
Nora Roberts (writing as JD Robb) Memory in Death
Nora Roberts Black Rose
Nora Roberts Blue Dahlia
Nora Roberts (writing as JD Robb) Survivor in Death
Nora Roberts Blue Smoke
James Patterson 2nd Chance
James Patterson Judge & Jury
James Patterson 5th Horseman
James Patterson Beach Road
James Patterson London Bridges
James Patterson Mary Mary
James Patterson 4th of July
James Patterson Lifeguard
John Sandford The Hanged Man's Song
John Sandford Broken Prey
John Sandford Hidden Prey
John Sandford Mortal Prey

I am so excited! I started reading Dan Brown's Angels & Demons last night (and am now on page 37). I'm hoping that this book supply will last me through the end of the year.

I bought 10 books (6 regular and 1 Reader's Digest Condensed Book - 4 in 1) and borrowed 7 from the library before my surgery. I had finished all of them by Sunday. I also read another 7 or 8 magazines in that time frame. I started reading the new Dick Francis book Monday night and finished it yesterday. I was trying to pace myself, but as I got farther into it, I just couldn't stop after a few chapters.

Of course, I wasn't the person primarily responsible for Emily, so I could sit and read all day if I wanted to.

Today was my last day with childcare, sort of. My parents came over this morning to help me do the grocery shopping. Mom stayed home with Emily and Dad and I went to the grocery store and the local warehouse store. We got a ton of shopping done in just under 2 hours.

I'll have help from my parents again Monday and Tuesday, but for the most part, I am back on the job.

I'll keep you posted on how I'm doing with all these books.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Hm? Wha? Oh, hi.

*Streeeeeeetcccccccch*

Sorry, I was just taking a little nap. Or, I was until the phone rang. And then there wasn't anyone on the other end.

I met my mom at the mall for lunch and then we went to Target (I love Target) to get a couple prescriptions and assorted sick-kid stuff I've run out of.

All the excitement of going to lunch and Target totally wore me out, so when we got home, I put Emily down for her nap and then went and took a nap myself.

In bed, with the shades drawn and everything.

Apparently Emily has disabled the alarm she installed on the covers of our bed. When she was a newborn, if I laid down in our bed while she was sleeping (in her crib, in her own room) and pulled the covers up, she would immediately awaken and begin screaming.

Every. Single. Time.

It was very annoying and depressing, so I started taking my naps on the couch. But, there is something very luxurious about crawling back into your bed for a nap and I have been missing it.

I was going to watch Oprah, but it is about North Korea's nuclear test and I don't really want to watch that.

I think I am going to read a couple chapters in my new book.

Big Excitement

Last night, I had a training session for my new job. (Remember when I had a job interview for a job I declined to tell you about? Yeah, well I got the job. I still won't tell you what I'm doing. Sorry. I will say that I will be working from home. And that is very exciting to me)

Anyways, the training session began at 7 pm, so I left the house at 6:15. I wanted to take a few baby-less minutes and go to Target. I had a gift certificate from my birthday that was absolutely burning a hole in my purse.

I headed to the book section to get a replacement for Emily's 'Pat the Bunny' book, which died a horrible death over the weekend. I quickly found another PTB and then decided to look at the grown-up books for a couple of minutes.

Boy, am I glad I did.

There, on the middle shelf, sitting very quietly, was something I thought I would never see again.

A new book by Dick Francis.

You see, Dick Francis is one of my favorite authors. His first book was published in 1962. I have read as many as I can get my hands on and absolutely love them. He writes mysteries that are centered around horses and horse racing. I like horses well enough, but the way that Dick Francis writes about them makes his books very enjoyable.

The first book I read by Dick Francis, Shattered, was also the last one he wrote. Dick's wife, Mary, had recently passed away and he announced his retirement after the loss of his writing partner.

However, that retirement didn't last very long.

After a 6 year absence, Dick Francis is back with a new novel called, Under Orders.

I couldn't grab that book fast enough. I limped as quickly as I could to the cash register, with my prize clutched to my chest. I laid it gently on the belt, touching it as though to reassure myself that it was really real.

I started reading it this morning. So far, it looks like Dick Francis is back and as good as ever.

I am limiting myself to reading one chapter at a time to make this treasure last.

Alternate endings

I outed myself as a country music listener last week in my Day in the Life.

I was listening this morning to the local country station when I heard this song. It's called "She Didn't Have Time" by Terri Clark. It's a very nice song about a single mother meeting someone new.

The last verse of the song goes like this:

Not time, where would she find the time to trust a man again
not time, for that flat tire, a crowded parking lot and then
Not time, but yes, have coffee with the man that got her tire fixed
She was thinkin', "Gosh, he's handsome,"
When he asked, "do you have kids?"

She could have lied, but she didn't have time
All she said was "She's five." He said, "I saw the car seat, I love kids, does she have your eyes?"
And they sat and talked for hours
Givin' destiny its power
She could have been afraid to fall in love that night
But she didn't have time


And I thought, that's totally not how that would happen in real life.

I think the lyric should be: "I saw the car seat, I love kids, they're delicious"

Also, there is a song by Carrie Underwood (yes, the American Idol girl) called "Before He Cheats". I love it. (Seriously, that girl has a voice. And she's not afraid to use it. Of course, if I could sing like that and someone gave me $1,000,000, I wouldn't be afraid to use it either.)

Anyways, the chorus goes like this:

i dug my key into the side
Of his pretty little suped up four wheel drive
Carved my name into his leather seats
Took a Louisville slugger to both headlights
Slashed a hole in all four tires
Maybe next time he’ll think before he cheats

Mike says that if someone did that to him (I think he means me, I'm not sure) he would press charges. So the end of that song should be: Ma'am, please put the baseball bat down and step away from the car. You're under arrest.

I know, not as lyrical as "Maybe next time he'll think before he cheats", but much more likely to really happen.

I could do this all day. Right now there's a song on by Josh Turner called "Would you go with me?", which, is how boys asked girls to be their girlfriends when I was in 5th grade. Now, I'm all, go where? Where are we going?

Ok, enough wasting time. Back to work!

Pukey Pukerson

This morning started like any other. We got up, took showers, got dressed, got Emily up, dressed and fed her.

Because we were up earlier than usual, Emily even got to play for a few minutes before we left for church.

As I got into the car, after buckling Emily into her car seat, I heard the velcro rrriiipp noise as she took her shoe off. She does this at every opportunity. If she's not wearing shoes, the socks come off.

Anyways, as Mike and I drove to church, we talked quietly about various things, nothing important (or at least, not that I can remember). What I do remember is that there was not much talking coming from the backseat.

That's not unusual. If Emily is sleepy, she'll just sit quietly in her car seat until we reach our destination or she falls asleep.

We arrived at church (I know, huge buildup. Sorry) and got out of the car. I stood by the car, holding the bibles and waiting for Mike to put Emily's shoes back on so we could go inside. He had just gotten the second shoe on when bllllaaaagh.

Emily threw up.

I turned and limped inside to get some paper towels to clean up and as I did that bllllaaggh - she did it again.

And again.

I know I said something about going inside to get stuff to clean up and let everyone (Mike's parents, mostly) know that we're not coming to church today. I ran inside, grabbed as many paper towels as I could from the annoying, one-at-a-time dispenser and then stuck my head into the sanctuary and said something like: "Hi, we're not staying, Emily just threw up 3 times in the car. I've gotta go help. See ya!"

Fortunately, our church is very, very small. Like 50 people. Maybe. They all know us. And not many of them were there when I made my announcement.

As I walked out of the building, I saw Emily standing in the parking spot next to ours, absolutely covered in puke. And stomping her feet and crying. Poor kid. Honestly, it was one of the funniest things I've seen. She was so mad. And so upset. And I wanted to grab her and give her a big hug, except. YUCK! She was covered in puke!

I carry a spare set of clothes with me in the diaper bag, so I fished those out and told Mike I would clean Emily up if he'd take care of the car seat. I picked Emily up, stuck the spare clothes inside my jacket so they wouldn't get accidentally pukey and carried her into the church to get changed. At arms length. If my arms had been longer I would have held her farther away from me.

Have I mentioned that puke makes me want to join in? And that I haven't been feeling well all weekend? *shudder*

Someone was kind enough to open the door for me and I ran downstairs and laid Emily on the floor under the stairs. I should explain, that our church is in an office building. The sanctuary, Sunday school room and pastor's office are on one floor and the nursery is on another. I was heading towards the nursery (where there is a changing table) when I realized that I shouldn't put a pukey kid on a changing table that is used by others. So I stopped in the hallway and changed her there. I mostly wanted to get her inside, so I wasn't stripping her to her diaper in the parking lot. (Not so much for her modesty, as she doesn't really have any, as for the fact that it is October in Upstate New York and it's chilly today. And puking to me means sick. Sick kids don't need to be naked in a parking lot in October).

A friend came down and helped me get some paper towels to mop up the puke that had landed on actual skin and kept me company while I stripped the baby. I got Emily dressed again in the spare outfit and bagged up the pukey clothes, cleaned up the area where I'd been and headed back outside.

Poor Mike. I think he had a worse job than me. The car seat was covered in puke. Ugh. He was trying to remove the car seat cover so that Emily could ride home without sitting in puke. Turns out (after looking at the manual - Go Mike!) that removing the car seat cover involves screws. He actually started doing that and I pointed out that Mike's parents have a car seat in their car for our nephew and did he want to see if his parents would lend it to us so we didn't have to do this in the middle of the parking lot? Sure.

I went back inside and his parents gave me the car keys to borrow their seat (and I am all the while praying that Emily won't get sick in that seat, too). We got the seat installed in the car, picked up the larger chunks from the parking lot and got the heck outta there.

Mike's car is sitting in the driveway, with all the windows and the trunk open, trying to air it out. I have washed the clothes Emily was wearing, as well as her shoes and the car seat cover and diaper bag. The kid left no stone un-puked. She does a good job! :)

Mike and I split the washing of the car seat straps. Neither of us wanted to do it. The car seat is also out in the driveway, drying. Hopefully, it will be dry by tomorrow evening when Mike needs it.

So that was our Sunday morning. How was yours? Hopefully not as pukey. Literally.

Emily did not throw up in Tommy's car seat. Thank goodness!

Mike told me when we got home that I had to get her out of the car because the last time he did it, she threw up! Yep, Mike's got a real firm grip on that logic thing.


PS: You may have noticed in the above story a couple of things.

1) I took a shower. Standing up.
2) I am not using my crutches anymore.

I went to the doctor on Friday. He took out the stitches and told me I could take stand-up showers. Yippee!! I have to keep the incision covered with a big bandage, but I can take a shower. He also said that I can stop using the crutches, if I feel up to it. If I feel I need them, obviously, I should use them. And I should continue to take it easy. He also said that I could start taking care of Emily by myself again next week. I'll continue to have help this coming week, but after that, I'm on my own. YAY! I am really looking forward to that. I took care of her by myself for part of Friday and realized how much I missed it. I also had missed being at home.

Day in the Life, October 2006

I remembered to do my Day in the Life post for October (and managed not to delete it) and now it looks like Sheryl, from Paper Napkin, is out of town and won't be the organizer this month. Well, mine is already done, so I am going to post it here and send her the link and let the chips fall where they may. I know, from my morning cruise of my daily blogs, that Julie over at Juliloquy has taken a shot at predicting how her day will go. She posted her prediction last night and will update through today to indicate how close she was.

So, below is my fairly boring day.

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5:18 am: I wake up and look at the clock – ask Mike what time his alarm is set for. 5, he answers. I ask him if it has gone off already, he says twice. Roll over and go back to sleep.

5:35 am: Mike gets up. I show my support of his early morning meeting by rolling over and going back to sleep.

7:11 am: hear strange noise in the house. Wake up more and realize it is the dog barking (woofing, really) at my mom as she lets herself in. get out of bed to meet her, grab crutches and try not to put weight on foot.

7:12 am: meet Mom in the dining room and say hi. Tell her I am going to go take a shower. Mom makes herself comfortable in the house.

7:27 am: Finish shower, head to my room to get dressed. We have a shower in the master bathroom, but it is leaking, so we have stopped using it till we have enough money to fix it. I want to make some major adjustments to the layout, so it’s gonna be a while, probably.

7:41 am: finish getting dressed, styling hair, etc. head out to kitchen to have breakfast.

8:17 am: leave house. Mom got Emily up, dressed and fed while I was in the shower and getting dressed.

8:38 am: arrive at Breuggers to refill Mom’s coffee. Emily and I come in with Mom and I mooch a chai off her. Mmmm, chai. I have just discovered the yumminess that is chai. Love it. I hope that this ginormous chai she bought me doesn’t have caffeine in it.

9:06 am: arrive home from Brueggers, park myself in my usual seat. Below is a picture I took from my 'usual seat' at my parent's house.

9:09 am: mom brings in my backpack. Unload pc and start it up to do Day in the Life.

9:11 am: pc booted, check email (none – yay! No spam), start Word.

9:16 am: admonish Emily to stay away from table laden with remote controls. Move another table closer to chair to keep her away from remote table.

9:22 am: finish updating Day in the Life. Get up to plug pc in.

9:24 am: sit back down and get out cross stitch.

9:30 am: hear a ‘pop’ noise from my pc – it’s a notification thing, telling me that there are wireless networks available. Which means that I have (again) lost my wireless connection. Grr. Start looking into what happened and then discover it’s back. Whatever.

9:31 am: get up to go to the bathroom.

9:35 am: back in the chair after potty break. Get ‘Artist of the day’ from local country station, head out to website to claim my 2500 points.

9:37 am: back to cross stitching.

10:06 am: get up for another potty break. Darn chai.

10:10 am: sit back down in chair, start cross-stitching again.

10:20 am: mom takes Emily upstairs to take a nap. We’re just starting to experiment with keeping her up for more than 2 hours at a time. She had been showing signs of being tired about 2 hours after she gets up, but then she would take an hour or more to fall asleep. Letting her stay up longer has been shortening the amount of time it takes her to fall asleep.

10:48 am: set cross-stitching aside to check my daily blogs.

11:01 am: mom’s cell phone rings; dad is calling. He is down at the DMV taking his CDL test. He passed. Yay Dad! Back to blogs.

11:32 am: stop blog reading (and commenting!) for a second to go log in my ‘Code Word of the Day’ from the local country station. This gets me another 2500 points. That brings my total 73,500. Yippee! Back to blogs….

11:41 am: Dad starts “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” for me. Watching….

11:45 am: My God, I love this show. It’s like “West Wing” but in television. And it has Matthew Perry! What’s not to love?

12:06 pm: I’m not sure I like Bradley Whitford when he’s wearing his glasses on his forehead.

12:11 pm: done looking at blogs (have been watching and blog reading at the same time – blog reading during commercials…)

12:23 pm: Emily is awake from her nap. 2 hours, give or take a little. We’ve been putting her down for her naps in a Sleep Sack and it seems to be helping her sleep longer. Yay! I love these things.

12:26 pm: Mom brings Emily down and she sits on my lap for a few minutes of cuddles.

12:29 pm: Mom gets Emily’s lunch ready and takes her from me.

12:34 pm: Mom brings Oscar out to me and he has lost his not-so-fresh feeling. Domino kept stealing Oscar and running around the house with him. Domino’s mouth isn’t the cleanest (and don’t tell me about dog’s mouths being cleaner than ours ‘cause I have smelt his breath and DAMN!) and Oscar was starting to get pretty stinky. I asked my mom to help me clean Oscar up because my application (liberal, believe me) of Febreze had left him smelling like someone wearing A LOT of perfume to cover up bad B.O.

12:38 pm: I finish watching Studio 60. Seriously, I love this show. Back to cross-stitching. Mom leaves to go to BK to get me some lunch. How spoiled am I?!

1:02 pm: Mom is back from BK. Emily just made my dad’s day – she climbed up in his lap and put her head on his chest. She’s such a sweetie…

1:09 pm: finished eating. I pick up Emily for a quick snuggle. She squirms to get down, so I put her down and she heads of to wreak havoc on the rest of the house.

1:17 pm: potty break.

1:21 pm: sit back down, back to cross-stitching. This is turning out to be a very un-exciting day.

1:23 pm: checked my email – I have 7 messages! 4 spams, 1 prayer request, 2 secret shopper things I can’t do because I can’t walk and I don’t want to drive 25 miles for $25. And, actually it would just be a $25 reimbursement for a dinner. I don’t think I can be bothered right now.

2:12 pm: Emily has discovered the piano books in the living room. She’s now taken the cover off one of them. Dad, who is helping to supervise is exhorting her to be gentle with the books. She doesn’t really get that concept, especially with books. He takes the books away from her.

2:20 pm: I have finished another color on my cross-stitch. Oh wait, no I’m not. Phooey.

2:30 pm: moms friend arrives. Sit in the living room to chat with her.

3:25 pm: friend leaves, start watching House premiere. Yes, I know that was a month ago. I was working and my VCR didn’t tape. Yes, VCR. It’s 1995, right?

3:43 pm: realize I didn’t update this when friend left, stop watching House and do the math to figure out when friend left, etc. Resume watching and cross-stitching.

4:13 pm: dad asks me to pause House so he can do something with the stereo/tv system.

4:15pm: dad finishes checking DVD he just made

4:21 pm: finish watching House premiere, start second one.

4:24 pm: realize I’ve already seen this one. Stop it, change TV to watch Oprah. I am so afraid of screwing my parent’s TV up. My dad has these cool remotes where you can push one button and then a macro runs and turns all the equipment on and does what you want it to do. It also troubleshoots if something isn’t working, but if you don’t do the troubleshooting and just start pushing buttons, everything breaks. So I am gingerly pressing remote buttons, afraid all the while that I am about to bomb Japan if I hit the wrong button.

4:26 pm: commercials on Oprah; get up for a potty break.

4:29 pm: sit back down. Oprah’s topic is Sex after 50. Um, ok. I think I’ll pass. Decide to surf a little. And call Mike.

4:47 pm: Mom comes downstairs and asks what I want to do about Emily. This is a dilemma. She is still sleeping. Two hours and 15 or so minutes since Mom put her down. Do I want to wake her up? Not really. Should we let her sleep? Probably not. I look at the blog I’m reading and decide I really don’t want to stop yet, so Mom and I cut a deal: we’ll let her sleep until 5 and then get her up. Yes, I know, bad Mommy. [Edited to add: Emily was a well-behaved, non-fussy wonder until 7 last night, so letting her sleep that extra 15 minutes must have made a difference.]

5:00 pm: Emily is still sleeping. Mom is feeding their birds (one blue-and-gold macaw and one red lored Amazon. Bird people will know what this means.) and when she’s done, she’ll go and get Emily up. And then we’ll leave to head home.

5:03 pm: change the battery in my digital camera to take a picture of the progress I’ve made on my cross-stitch in the past couple of days. I was going to post them and then realized I didn't care that much. I got a lot of the background done. It's really starting to look nice. I will post a picture when it is done. Click on this link if you are really interested in seeing what I am working on.

5:06 pm: finish packing up cross stitch stuff in backpack and head out to the internet to look for an electronic picture of the project I’m working on.

5:10 pm: Mom heads upstairs to wake Emily. I think she might have been awake. Either way, the sounds of Chicken Dance Elmo are floating downstairs.

5:12 pm: shut pc down so I am ready to go.

5:56 pm: arrive at my house. Mike calls just as we are pulling in the driveway to say he is on his way home from work.

6:11 pm: Mom puts Emily in her highchair to feed her some dinner.

6:33 pm: Mike arrives home. Emily lets out a happy yell of “Dada!” when she hears me say that Mike’s home.

6:41 pm: Mom and Dad leave. Mike goes into the kitchen to make salads for dinner.

6:58 pm: Mike brings the completed salads out to the dining room and lifts Emily back into her highchair.

7:23 pm: I get up from the table and head back out to the living room to update this post.

7:24 pm: I head into the kitchen to do the dinner dishes.

7:43 pm: Finish with the dishes. Drop Emily’s bedtime bottle off in her room and check in on Emily and Mike in the bathroom. Emily is having fun in her bath tonight. Mike says she is becoming quite the water baby. Yay. I love to swim and always wanted my kid(s) to enjoy water as much as I do.

7:48 pm: sit on the floor and pick up Emily’s toys.

7:51 pm: finish picking up the toys. Emily wasn’t here for very long today, so she didn’t have much chance to spread her toys all over the house. Realize that 7:51 means it is almost 8. (duh) CSI is on in an hour. Yippee! Yell at Domino to stop chewing on his pillow.

8:01 pm: Mike brings Emily out to say goodnight. She’s in her jammies and sleep sack. I ask her for a kiss and a hug. She sometimes mixes up kisses and hugs, so tonight I get 3 hugs when I asked for a kiss. I don’t mind – I love her hugs. Mike takes her back and heads back into her bedroom to give her a bottle before bed.

8:04 pm: Mike comes out of Emily’s room with a partially full bottle. I had put 6 oz in it, and there were probably 4 remaining when he came out. As he said, it’s been a while since she’s done that. She seems to really like whole milk. She wasn’t crazy about formula, but when we changed over to whole milk, she started sucking the bottles down.

8:20 pm: hear a funny roaring noise and realize what it is I’m hearing. Mike has started a fire in the fireplace. First one of the season. Take pictures of first fire of the season. Mike looked up after I took this picture and asked what I was doing. As if it wasn't obvious. Apparently it was because he answered himself: Oh, blog.

8:27 pm: get up to get Advil. I was hoping my headache would go away after dinner, but no such luck. I think the chai had caffeine in it. :P

8:30 pm: return from Advil and bathroom trip (decided to go while I was there). Sit down to read my book some.

8:56 pm: get up from reading to get the basket of remotes from behind Mike.

9:00 pm: turn on CSI.

9:05 pm: ask Mike if he wants ice cream. He does, but wants me to come with him while he dishes it out. Head into kitchen to get ice cream.

9:08 pm: Mike comes out to the living room with my ice cream. I’m trying to be good and use my crutches, so carrying a bowl of ice cream is out.

9:20 pm: a commercial for a prescription sleep-aid just said that a side effect of the medication was drowsiness. You think? Something that helps insomnia would cause drowsiness?

9:23 pm: finish ice cream.

9:38 pm: get up and take ice cream dishes into kitchen. Limp back out to my chair and sit down.

9:46 pm: I’ve seen a commercial a couple of times tonight for JCPenney – a Grand Opening sale. Why is that JCPenney is having a grand opening sale? I could kind of understand Macy’s having a grand opening sale because they are sort of, kind of new in this area, but JCPenney has been around for ever. What’s up with that?

9:58 pm: CSI is over. Get up and go to bed.

Ugh

I probably overdid it this morning. I got up, got dressed, ate breakfast, tidied the kitchen, made Mike's lunch, made Emily's breakfast, fed her, put together sippy cups for today, reorganized my backpack for today (at my mother-in-laws today, my mom's tomorrow), folded a couple of sheets and some jammies in Emily's room, got out some more diapers, restocked her diaper bag and sat on the floor and played with Emily. All between 7:00 and 8:30.

When I got to my mother-in-laws, I took a Vicodin and a half a promethazine (the pharmacy was out of the strength my doctor prescribed, so they gave me the next higher strength and told me to cut them in half). About 45 minutes after I took the meds, I started feeling lightheaded and nauseous.

Great.

It seems the promethazine didn't work for some reason. Ugh. So I took another one to try to head off the pukiness at the pass. We'll see how it works.

For now, I feel really gross. I'm going to stop playing on the computer for now and take a snooze.

My life of crime

I remember driving home with my dad after visiting my grandparents once when I was about 8. The route my dad was taking used a lot of back roads and when we turned on one of them, there was a large sign saying that the road was closed.

My dad drove the car around the sign. I remember being excited and nervous because we were "breaking the rules". I longed to live on a road like that, that was closed, except to the local traffic. I thought it would be so cool! I'm allowed to drive on a road that no one else is. Or something. I was easily impressed as a kid.

My wish came true this week. They are re-routing our street so that the intersection is 500 feet to the east and have closed it to all traffic while they complete the conversion. As we were leaving the house this morning, I had to remind Mike to turn to the left out of the driveway instead of to the right. I didn't notice last night when we got home if the traffic was lighter, but it must be. That will be nice - there is usually lots of traffic going VERY fast in front of our house.

They are scheduled to complete the conversion by 10/14. That seems like a long time to me. When we were living in our apartment, a similar adjustment was made to a road near us and the changeover was completed in one day. When I left the house in the morning, I went the old way and then by the time I came home that afternoon, the new part was open.