SPF - July 29, 2005

DSCF0543
Originally uploaded by kelito.

So, I'm a day late. I really meant to get this done yesterday. Really, I did. Anyhoo, this is our bed. You'll notice the lack of bedspread or comforter and the fan in the window. It's been HOT here. WAY hot. And we don't have A/C.

You get a view of both my dresser from the outside:

(You'll note that we're totally doing a Trading Spaces thing with the dresser. I'm still not done painting, I need to touch up some areas)

Inside the drawers, the top is undergarments, socks and the like. Second drawer is sweats/shorts and the bottom drawer is jammies. I love me some jammies. My favorite pair are my

Ryan Newman NASCAR jammies that Mi Mami bought for me.

Eventually today and tomorrow, I'll be around checking everyone else's stuff out.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!

Dear God, I'm A Big Fat Dork

So, there's this guy that works in my building that I think is really hot, in a Harrison Ford, Patrick Stewart distinguished gentleman kind of way.

Definitely in an untouchable kind of way. You know, like if Cat met Constantine. Or if I actually met Ben Affleck.

Anyway, I was doing my property inspection today and I ended up walking past his office. I always try to catch a glance while avoiding eye contact with him, because, you know....I think he's hot. And if he makes eye contact then he'll know that I think he's hot. In that Harrison Ford, Patrick Stewart kind of way.

So today, I'm walking past his office and he looks right at me, so what do I do? I smile like a goober and give him this retarded little wave, like a three year old waves. I know he thought "Who the hell is this retard waving at me like she's a three year old girl?"

I am such a big fat dork.


*****Disclaimer for my husband, who reads my blog****
Yes, I think this guy is hot. Just like you think Denise Richards is hot. And you thought that girl with the huge hooters that lived at Chimney Ridge was hot. Not cheat on you and leave you for him hot. Just eye candy hot.

Thoughts & Prayers? Please.

Grandma is going for stomach surgery today. Apparently, she has a hernia which has allowed her stomach to flip up over her diaphragm, making it hard to digest anything and making it even harder to breathe. She is also getting her gall bladder taken out.

Step-MIL is going to the cardiologist in Casper. Her oncologist in Gillette has found more lumps under her arm, but they are more concerned about her ticker. If everything gets the all clear from the cardiologist, then they will biopsy the lumps. She is a one time breast cancer survivor. I really don't want her to have to go through this again.

MIL is having a really hard time dealing with the insurance companies paying for the funeral home expenses and the flight for life and the ICU for Josh. She's hired an attorney and they are going to court next week. Like she needs to deal with this right now, right? The woman lost her son and now has to fight with the insurance company to get his funeral paid for. Un-fucking-believable. Greedy assed bastards.

My cousins are coming out for grandmas birthday in two weeks. (MOM - this is a surprise. Keep your mouth SHUT. If I find out that you've spilled the beans, I will personally beat your ass. - Note, I know that this seems harsh. I love my mother, I really, really do. It's just that she can't keep a secret. Even though she says she can. She can't) I love my cousins. I do. It's just that my older cousin has this way of making these snarky comments that make me feel really bad. ie, "Women who have c-sections are lazy" after she knew that I'd had a c-section and I wasn't given a choice about it. Anyway, it's already started, I asked if we could take the three little ones to Kiddie Kandids and get a picture of all three of them together for grandma's birthday and she tells me "Well, I think that's really cheesy. But I guess we can do it" She knows that I get my son's pictures done there all the time, so I guess I'm really cheesy. I know that it's mostly my issues. That I feel inadequate around them because they both have post-graduate degrees and I never even finished college. They both stay home with their children, because their husbands make enough money to support them, whereas, I work. I don't think that it's intentional on their part. I really don't. But it still makes me feel bad and I'm still not looking forward to a solid week of feeling like my life doesn't amount for shit compared to theirs.

Feh, so anyway.

Any spare good thoughts, prayers, whatever - could you send them my way?

You'll never regret having another one

So, I um thought I might be pregnant this weekend. I was late and my boobs hurt like they haven't hurt in about four years.

Y'all know that I have been saying for a long time that I only want one. That I'm completely satisfied with the current size of my family. That it's hard to improve on perfection. That I'm really happy that we'll be able to provide better for our son.

Well, when Aunt Flo finally showed her face Sunday night, I was hysterical. The thing is that it's not like we're trying, this would have been a complete surprise.

I guess I should clarify here. Over the weekend I realized that I desperately want another child. I know that we can't have one, because we can't afford it.

Then I think to myself, well hell. People have all sorts of children that they can't afford and they figure out a way to make it work. But a baby would seriously put our family into even more dire straights financially. And I'm not talking about just giving up the morning latte or new shoes. I'm talking about having to eat ramen noodles for weeks on end and living in the ghetto in a small apartment.

I want to know how people afford it. I make a good living, but still. There is no way that we could afford an extra $1,000/month on infant daycare, let alone diapers, formula and all the rest that comes with a baby.

I'm depressed about it, if you can't tell. I really wish that my period had never been late, that I'd never even "gone there" so that I could continue to live happily knowing that my family is complete, rather than sitting here contemplating what someone said to me one time. "You'll never regret having another child, but you may very well regret not having another one"

mrtl motif Monday - Goals

Ugh, my goal, not only this week, but for all time is to get organized.

I haven't been on much this weekend. As soon as I started feeling better Saturday morning, I had just enough time to take Rusty Shackelford

to the vet for his free health exam. Good news, he's healthy. Bad news, he still needs all his shots to the tune of $100. Oh, and on Sunday, I found one of my fabulous new Enzo's under the couch with the heel chewed up. I think it can be fixed, but still. WTH, dog??

I haven't felt much like blogging. I haven't felt like doing much of anything. I think it's because my life feels so out of control right now that I'm not sure what's what. My period was really late this month. Like by about 4 days. I'm usually never late. It started yesterday with a vengeance. But all day Saturday and some of the day yesterday as my husband and I contemplated what a baby would add to our situation it hit me like a ton of bricks.

I'm tired of living with mess. And our whole life feels like a mess right now. My husband is back to work, but we're nowhere near caught up on everything, including the attorney for our bankruptcy. When we moved into our duplex, we knew we'd have to do some downsizing, since this house is much smaller than our former residence. Needless to say, we need to look at either storing or getting rid of more stuff. I've also subscribed to flylady again. I may sign my husband up as well. I feel like we have lots of goals that we're not going to accomplish until we get the mess taken care of. Buying a house, not until the bankruptcy's done and we get our credit reestablished, but we have to clean up the mess first. Vacation next summer? Clean up the mess first. New furniture? Clean up the mess first.

Sorry this is so downbeat. I'm really trying to pull myself out of it, but I just feel so overwhelmed and tired.

In which I declare, UGH, I'm sick.

I've spent the last 24 hours alternately sleeping and crying in the bathroom. I was running a fever so high that in my house without A/C that was probably 100 degrees yesterday, I turned off all the fans and pulled out the down comforter.

I'm better this morning than I was yesterday. Still not feeling great though. I'll so SPF tonight after work, I promise.

In Which I talk about my trip

Foster City 7.05 135
Originally uploaded by kelito.

I left Wednesday from the office at lunch time. My flight was scheduled to leave at 3:30. By the time I got to the airport, I was looking at 4:15, but you know - 45 minutes isn't that bad. Eventually I was hit with the news that my flight was being delayed until 6:30. So I called my husband and I called Kristine. I knew that she was going to try and meet me in Foster City that night, but since my plane wasn't leaving until 6:30, I didn't think we'd be able to get together. So you know what she tells me?

"Can you catch a flight to Sacramento and I'll drive you to Foster City?"

I quickly run back to my original gate, they put me on standby for the plane that is currently boarding to Sacramento. I run down the terminal to get to the gate all the while complaining on the phone to Kristine that it's not nice to make fat chicks run in heels. I run up to the gate and the sign says the flight is full. But I see the attendant is still at the turnstile and I ask if there's any way I can get on this flight and he tells me yes - there's one seat left. But my bags will not make it. So I quickly tell Kristine that I'm on the flight and that I'll land in Sacramento at 5:20 and that I'm wearing a pink shirt, black pants and carrying a floral bag.

I call my husband from the plane and it all of the sudden hits me. I've just put myself on a plane to nowhere near where I need to be tomorrow morning at 9:00 for work. I've talked to Kristine a few times, but I don't *know* her. I have no money to rent a car...basically, if Kristine doesn't show up to get me - I'm screwed.

Thankfully, as I'm coming down the escalator at the Sacramento Airport - there she is!

She is just as wonderful and funny and kind as she comes across through Random and Odd. Her friend 'Cita is just as wonderful and funny and kind as Kristine. We had a fabulous trip from Sacramento to Foster City and I saw areas of California that I otherwise would not have seen. It was great! I rode in Van Morrison! I took pictures with the BAMF! Since I was having problems getting someone to tell me where my checked bag had gone, she and 'Cita made sure to run me up to the airport to pick it up. Yes, Kristine has parking garage anxiety. But I didn't think it was all that bad. I mean, no one likes to drive in a crazy parking garage.

I was very sad when she had to leave - but as it was, it was late and she needed to get home. Maybe Kristine, we can meet up at Mt. Rushmore sometime?

Training was fabulous, and I mean that. I learned SO much and everyone at our corporate office is fantastically nice. I met another manager from Hell-A and she and I had dinner together Thursday night.

My room was great - a big bed all to myself that didn't have cat hair or cookie crumbs all over it. But you know what, come Friday morning, I missed all the cat hair and cookie crumbs and other occupants of my bed.

Check out my flickr slide show.

I've been busy this weekend

So I haven't had a chance to write a great post about my trip. And I promise, as soon as I'm done with this:


and this:


I'll be writing more.

In which I declare...I'm outta here!

In about eight hours I'm hopping on a plane to the Bay Area. I SO wish I was going for fun and relaxation, but that's not the case. I'm going for work. More specifically, training. Feh.

So, I will not be here Friday to play SPF, but I promise to play very first thing when I get home Saturday. Well, maybe late Friday night. But, I'm thinking about trying to talk my husband into going out for a bit after he picks me up from the airport Friday night.

I'd love to sit and really write a long interesting post this morning, but I have to get off my ass and finish packing and getting ready.

Ugh - I really hate leaving my son. Even for a few days. Even though I know that he's not going to miss me even in the slightest. He's going to have fun with his Dad and Aunt. He's going to have fun with his Moomoo. He won't want to come home with me when I pick him up from Moomoo's on Saturday morning. But I'm going to miss him. Even though I plan on taking full advantage of two nights without household responsibility...I'm going to miss tucking him in, getting my morning kiss. I'm going to miss him.

And oh yes - countdown to Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.....3 DAYS!!!!!

In which I solicit the advice from the dog people in the blogosphere

We want to get a dog.

Right now, we have this big yard, but after our bankruptcy is over, we'll be looking to buy something and I'm sure it will be a condo or townhome. So in about a year, we'll have a small yard.

We have two cats who are my babies. Any animal that joins our family must be OK with the cats and not terrorize them.

Same goes for the kid. Only I think it's more that the dog must be OK with the possibility of the kid terrorizing it. He means well, but, you know, he's three and all.

I want a lap dog. No bigger than 20 pounds. When my car is eventually paid off, I want to trade it in for a smaller sized car. Like a Jetta. Or a Saab. So, the dog must not be so big as to not fit on the front seat next to me.

I don't want a super high energy dog. My husband is adamant that we not get a dog that "shakes". I definitely do not want a dog that requires a lot of grooming.

I've been doing some research and it looks like a pug might be a good fit for our family.

So, now I'm soliciting advice. Does anyone have experience with pugs? Or another breed that would work for us? Horror stories of a breed that we don't want?

Costumes

It's mrtl motif Monday and today's word is costumes.

I have to admit, I was never good at Halloween costumes. I'm always really creative, like the day or week after Halloween. So I'm going to take the word and stick it into another context.

Many of you don't know that I went to college to major in music. With an emphasis in Opera Theatre.

Yes, you heard it here first. I was/am an opera geek. I still love to sing. I get quite depressed nowadays since I'm not singing all of the time and my range has all but decreased by two octaves.

So, yes, back to the costumes. I have been "doing" theatre, musical theatre and choral works since I was teeny tiny. In the first play that I remember being in my costume was a big box wrapped up like a present. I was "Big Me". It was at our church, a Unitarian Church, and the play was all about ego and id and really deep stuff that a 5 year old just doesn't "get". All I "got" was that my lines were funny and people laughed and thought I was great. "Big Me" was the egotistical, attention hungry, selfish friend of "Little Me". (BTW - NOT a stretch for me to play at 5)

My favorite play I've ever done is when the theatre group I was working with at the time (I was just shy of 19) did an update of Jesus Christ Superstar. We had so much fun on this show. To this day, it's my favorite thing that I've ever done. We had a massively talented cast, for community theatre, and everyone got along really well. Which hardly ever happens in a cast. We updated it by setting it in present times. Jesus was a street preacher, Judas had a smack habit (and killed himself with an overdose at the end). Annas and Caiphas were televangelists who worked at a show called "Pray for Heaven" which, when the door slammed, the sign would lose its "R" and become "Pay for Heaven". Fitting, no? So anyway, I played Annas and I totally got madeover to look like Tammy Faye Baker - big spidery eyes and all.

As many of you have guessed, I grew up in Colorado Springs, which is where (and I'm seriously NOT making this up) God himself has called his "special" followers to gather to avoid the Armageddon (and not the movie with my future husband Ben Affleck). Needless to say, once word got out that we were first, performing the "blasphemous" Rock Opera and second that we were updating it to take potshots at evangelicals....well, lets just say we got protested. Every night. Every night, I'd walk into the theatre and get screamed at by a family of four, a fifty year old man, two really homely women (who I suspected were closet lesbians) and a myriad of other people carrying BIG Bibles. One of them actually came in to our dress rehearsal in order to "report back what filth we were portraying". The next day, opening night, our director pulled us together backstage to read the letter from this same lady. She basically said that she had come to be able to report the filth, what she found was that if Jesus were alive today, she thought the scenario would play out exactly as we had shown. She mentioned that she found herself closer to Christ after leaving our play, since she realized that Christ was about love - not money and not exclusion. It was a huge moment to realize that even community theatre had the ability to impact someone's life in a very profound way.

I haven't done any theatre in over 8 years. Obviously, with work and family obligations, I won't be doing any time soon. But I hope that someday I will. I miss the smell of a theatre, the way the lights blind you as you look toward the audience, the way that eighteen tons of makeup are required to be seen from the 25th row and beyond. And I do miss the costumes. Whether it's the wedding dress I wore as Maria in The Sound of Music or the bra and panties I wore as the girl who tries to turn Jeffrey back on to women or the school girl uniform I wore as Mary in The Children's Hour. I even miss the scratchy long wig I wore for Laura in The Glass Menagerie. Someday, my child will be gone and my house will be quiet and my husband will be golfing and you'll know where you can find me.

SPF - July 8, 2005

MY FAVORITE FRAMED PICTURE

This was taken when my son was 3 months old. Look at how chubby he was! Do you see the rolls of fat? Do you? Do you? I mean, shit - he had man boobs. He needed a mansierre! And now look at him - he's so freaking skinny.
I swear to God I feed him.



MY MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTIONS



I don't even have the excuse of buying them off my son for fundraisers. We just like to read magazines. It used to be worse. Somehow, my Better Homes and Gardens and Ladies Home Journal didn't make the mail forwarding (I really need to call and update the address) and I let Jane expire. I'm probably going to add In Style and Lucky this fall.


MY HOUSEHOLD PET PEEVE



Do I need to explain? The bad thing - I don't even do this chore. Somehow, I've managed to let my husband handle this one. THANK YOU HONEY! Oh yeah, and get it? PET peeve? My PET peeve is where my PET PEE'S! God, I am so fucking hilarious!

Back to Work Today

So, today was my first day back this week and it....










was just what I expected it to be. Busy, Busy, Busy. As no one did anything of mine while I was gone.

Eh, whatever. Tomorrow's THURSDAY already.

This is All I've Managed To Do Today

DSCF0309
Originally uploaded by kelito.

This is it. At the end of my long, long weekend, this is all I have to show for it. And I've realized, I'm probably going to scar some of you for life with my ugly assed feet. Imagine if I had taken a picture before the pedicure???

PS - I've also made my Adsense ads my D70 fund. PLEASE click. I've had them on there for months and all I have is $2.79 to show for it. That's a LONG way off from the dineros needed for a D70.

Happy Independence Day

I'm doing my part to celebrate our independence by sitting around our extremely hot house. My husband had to work today, so I'm waiting for him to get home to see if we're up for doing anything. To be perfectly honest, I think that I'm satisfied with sitting here on the couch and watching fireworks on TV. Really, I do. It's hot. I'm tired. I'm now down to only one day before I have to return to work.

I hope that this week goes really quickly. A good friend of mine from Minnesota is going to be in town this weekend coming up. And to add the cherry on top, Mi Mami ran into another high school friend of mine this weekend and we're going to try to put together a small reunion of sorts. All of us freaks from high school. And really, we were. The punk/goth/new wave kids. HA! I'd bet no one from high school would recognize us now. We all grew into such nice presentable professional soccer mom types. But with an edge, you know the hip soccer moms. The one's who show up to pick the kids up from school blasting The Killers. So anyway, I'm really looking forward to next weekend.

So, on this Independence Day I really want to focus my "Thanks" on the men and women who had the foresight over 200 years ago to put it all on the line so that people like me could live freely. If you really think about it, it's amazing. These were lawyers and farmers and successful business men who literally sacrificed everything so that I could hate the President. I read somewhere (I can't remember now, where I did) that a good majority of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence ended up penniless and destitute, they lost their families, homes, etc. And they did this so that I could sit on my ample ass all weekend bemoaning that Tom Cruise is an idiot.

I personally think that a lot of people incorrectly thank our military on Independence Day. And please, don't tell me that I'm anti-military for what I'm thinking. I grew up in a military family in a military town and I married into the military. I'm very PRO-Military. But what I'm saying, is that I thank our military every Memorial Day and Veteran's Day. I thank our men and women in the Armed Services every time I see our flag. Everytime I see camo. I'm thankful that there are people in our country that are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice so that I can drive a gas guzzler to the Super Wal-Mart and flip through the tabloids for the latest picture of Demi's maybe baby bump.

So what I'm saying, I guess, is that while I'm immensely thankful for the sacrifices made by today's military, I'm even more thankful that people like Alexander Hamilton and John Hancock were willing to use what, in today's world, would be considered terrorist tactics to ensure that we would have a nation full of choices. A nation where the daughter of a poor sharecropper in the South can grow up to be a mega-millionaire talk show host. Where people can share ideas and express their opinions without fear of governmental reprisal. Where my father can sit around in his underwear and call Hillary Clinton a lesbian femi-nazi and where I can roll my eyes at him and wonder if all that pot he smoked, no WHEN all that pot he smoked permanently damaged his mind and made him FUCKING crazy. It was a huge sacrifice that the Benjamin Franklins and John Adamses made. Would any of us be willing to lose our livelihoods, possibly watch our children and other loved ones be tortured and killed, die too young and without a home all so that our grandchildren could have a better life? It's amazing. And I'm thankful.

The weekend is over.....already.....wahhhh

It went so fast. What the hell? Thank God I still have tomorrow and I've taken Tuesday off too. I didn't realize that I needed the time off so much until just now. I'm exhausted.

But, we had a great time Friday night. We went to see Mi Mami and we went downtown for SpeedWeek Friday night. My son was in heaven.



I mean, how often do you get to do this?




Mi Mami and I fell in love with him: (the actual driver of this car)

until we figured out that he was born in 1987!!! I was his age in 1987, for fuck's sake.

What do you think? Over-stimulated?


We had a great time and it was good to spend time with Mi Mami.

So today, what did I do? I sat around and watched the marathon of Beauty and the Geek. All fucking day long, I watched this show. Then the hubs and I decided to argue over whether or not Richard was simply psychotic (what I think) or just trying to get attention (the hubs) and whether or not Chuck was a prick (what the hubs thinks) or is a really, really nice guy with no patience for psycho's (I think).

I have two more days before I have to go back to the evil "work" place. It's supposed to be hotter than hell and we don't have A/C. I think we'll spend the day tomorrow at the Children's Museum (with A/C) and maybe the zoo (no A/C...so maybe not).