All I'm Saying there's a joke in here somewhere

Adding insult to injury, I developed pinkeye yesterday. And last night I couldn't sleep longer than 2 hours at a stretch because of coughing fits.

Sweet Jesus, this sucks. Waaaaah!

Ohhhhh gaaaaawd, we're sick here. Freya gave us the Christmas gift of passing her cold along. That poor kid, I hate to think she could have been as sick as Matt and I are now. But at least we got her to the doctor on Wednesday. She's doing pretty good now--her little nosey isn't even running much anymore.

The nasty business finally really hit Matt and I last night--I had been off work and feeling badly since Christmas night, but I thought that was as bad as it was going to get. Wrong. Last night I kept waking up because I couldn't breathe at all through my nose, and work as I might, I couldn't keep it unclogged for more than an hour. Chalk up another night of crappy sleep (we're at about 5 out of the last 7.)

We decided this morning that it was time to hit the nearby Doc in the Box and I was practically begging the guy for antibiotics. And he was all, "I don't like to prescribe them unnecessarily; it takes the bacteria 7 to 10 days to develop and you've only been sick three full days. And besides, that's how antibiotic-resistant Super Bugs develop--unnecessary antibiotics." I was thinking to myself, "Dude, I am literally the last person who is going to walk in here and ask for antibiotics frivolously. I've been on them exactly one time in the last four years." But noooo. And hey, guess who he did give antibiotics to? My husband! Stupid freaking doctor...

Anyway, send healing vibes. I'm dying over here.

Did you know that Americans throw away 25% more trash between Thanksgiving and New Years than they usually do throughout the year?

Matt called me at work last week, horrified because our neighbors across the street had a stack of cardboard boxes (because they'd just bought and set up Guitar Hero, apparently) in their garbage, and the stack was well above Matt's head. I told him to go get the cardboard and break it down in our recycling. He said the recycling truck had already come and gone, but then he decided to do it anyway. So we've had all the Guitar Hero detritus sitting in our garage for a week, but I'm proud of him: it was a relatively easy thing to do. And we're afraid we're going to be doing a lot of that on Saturday morning as the folks in our neighborhood put out their Christmas leavings. Most just won't take the time to break down the cardboard and put it in the blue box.

So one great thing you can do post-holiday extravaganza is try to make sure that most of your packaging gets recycled. Even if you do it just this one time (and I hope you'll maybe make a New Year's resolution to do it more often than that), it'll make a real difference.

Finally, how about recycling your Christmas tree? A lot of cities, Boise/Ada County included, will take pick your tree up from curbside and take it to be mulched. This handy website will tell you how to get your tree recycled--all you have to do is put in your zip code.

Thanks for listening to me--let's make 2008 and all the years ahead better by trying to cut down on the trash we put into landfills!

Well, I have a confession to make:

My family Christmas get-together wasn't bad at all. It was "kind of nice," as Matt put it. Part of it may have been that there were a few key players absent. Particularly, my sister-in-law's brother, who has nine kids and is a total chauvenist pig. My brother wasn't there, and my dad's fiancee' was home sick. Not to lay blame for a bad holiday at anyone's feet (we're all responsible for that), but I think the fact that there weren't as many people crammed into the small house made it a little easier to mingle.

Freya had a great Christmas morning and really got a kick out of opening gifts. She got a lot of new books, a cool floor puzzle, a LeapPad refrigerator phonics gizmo, a play broom (she loves to be Mommy's Little Helper) and some other assorted goodies. Matt and I kept our gift exchange kind of minimal this year so that we could focus on here, but we did give each other a couple of nice gifts and we're going to make a donation from our family to the Central Asia Foundation.

That said, Freya has been sick for the last several days and it has finally caught up with Matt and I. Her school had a little sign near the door last week indicating that the school "has been exposed to strep throat," so I'll be taking her in to the pediatrician later today to get a diagnosis and hopefully some medicine.

How did the rest of you fare over the holiday?

Merry Christmas from my family to yours.

I hope you find treasure under your tree!

I've been stressed about spending 2 hours with my family on Christmas. (As you'll know from an earlier post this week.) So I spent the entire hour appointment with my counselor this week talking about that. We made some good progress, and I'm certain that the objective, professional opinion of my counselor (and of many of the commenters here) is correct: we can either change what we're doing and make a happier Christmas, or we can feed into my older brother's problems and stay miserable with the status quo. More importantly, I am not a bad person for choosing the happier route, even if that means my older brother gets all crappy and cranky. So be it.

What I should have known was that I didn't need to bring all this newfound information and self-realization to my father for any input. I wasn't (I don't think) looking for his approval: I was just saying that we're going to do what we do this year because it is too late to change, but that it's the last time--we're going to introduce our own traditions with the family that is Matt, Freya and me, and we'll make opportunities for our extended family to enjoy time together. But if folks choose not to (or choose to be offended by the change), that's not my problem.

As I said, I should have known. Dad and I spent an hour politely arguing with each other, I started feeling unheard and therefore started crying (my great frustration response), and then I really made it all better by downloading on the fact that family gatherings are more uncomfortable because we all sit around and wait for him (Dad) to either have one of his trademark rage episodes, or be mortally offensive to someone in attendance.

Frick. So now I've already had Christmas Level One Stress, and we're still three days away. I freaking hate the holidays. Which is why this all needs to change--it really, really does.

Hanna Andersson is currently having their "Big, Big Sale" on kids and adults clothing. And I'm addicted to HA. I knew a few weeks back that the sale was starting today, and I swear to God I was way more excited about that than Christmas. (Less drama, for one.)

Freya's going to be pretty glam in her new duds. And I bought myself a little treat too.

Christmas is going to be an anticlimax after today...

How did I miss the fact that my long-time friend Tea has a blog? Why, because I've been living in a cave! No, seriously. I have no idea how that happened.

To my credit, my feet are nice and toasty in my new pink Mammoth Crocs! I had to return some jeans at Dillards today and decided to buy myself a little present.

The two things aren't related, though I'm sure Tea would love them. Yeah, that's it.

You'll never guess what a friend and I saw on our way back from lunch out today! The biggest wiener I have ever seen in my whole life...

Continue reading "More Reason to Love That Camera Phone!"

Take the Pig Personality Test! You can check mine out here.

Not sure it captures my personality accurately, but it was fun to draw a pig with my mouse. And I draw a damn fine pig, if I do say so myself.

Via new commenter RedSpiral.

I swear to God...I'm not sure if I should have kicked his ass more often or less often when he was growing up. (It can be such a fine balance, really.)

The backstory: for the last several years--probably four or five, maybe even more--we have gone to my eldest brother's house for Christmas. My dad and his fiancee come, as well as my little brother and my Uncle Fred. The good things: my brother is a phenomenal cook and we have a great dinner, we all usually get through it without doing anything mean to one another. The bad things: my sister-in-law's family comes too, and to put it gently, the families don't blend well. At best, each family takes a side of the living area and there isn't any mixing. At worst, feelings get badly hurt and we end up thinking they're all a bunch of Okies and they all think we're uppity assholes. (And if we're sitting there thinking what a bunch of Okies they are, then we probably are uppity assholes, right?)

Matt and I tried to schedule Christmas for our house this year, but my older brother said he'd like to keep doing it. Okay, it is important to him, so we'll just deal with our discomfort over the situation. After all, that means I don't have to clean up the house or cook a great deal of food.

However, my dad was just over here and said that my little brother (unmitigated asshole extraordinaire, even before this situation) has said he won't be attending this year because he "always leaves feeling like crying" because it is such a forced, unhappy way to spend the holiday. This isn't the part that I have a problem with: I agree 100% that it feels miserable. But you know why we do it, and why he ought to just suck it up and deal with it? Because it is important to our older brother.

Don't you think? I mean, can't you handle darn near anything for two hours if it means you're making a loved one happy? I have to admit, there is a part of me that is reacting because I am jealous that he won't have to endure it. But...seriously. That just seems so selfish to me.

What a jackass prick. He has a long history of pissing me off, and I suspect there is a long future of the same ahead. I keep holding out hope that he'll grow into a human someday, but he's 28, almost 29 years into the project and it hasn't shown any sign of happening yet.

I'm starting to get the hang of this technology stuff. Now if I could only enter a blog post from my cell phone.

So here's a picture of the hair of a girl we saw at Cost Plus tonight. We saw her from a distance--that is, we saw her hair. We then had to skulk around the store to get a look at her face. Was she young? Was she old? More importantly, what the hell was she thinking? Turned out she was young. She had a diamond stud in her nose and full Christina Aguilera (from the "Dirty" days) make-up on. Jeezus.

I bring you...her hair.

Does anyone reading have any ezperience with Guru? If you're not familiar, it is a website where you can bid on work projects from web design to writing & editing, to interior design. The projects range in proposed price from under $250 to quite a bit more. I'm interested, but you can't really view any good stuff without purchasing (of course) the $75 package. I'm actually a pretty darned good grant writer from a former job, and it looks like I might be able to make some extra money from this. You know...in my spare time. Ha. Ha ha.

I'm really not in the Christmas mood yet. I mean, we've got the tree set up, we sing Christmas songs with Freya all the time, and most of our shopping is done. But am I excited for the day? Nope. Who's with me?

I just spent two days in an Excel training. Lord, is my brain full.

Oh, remember my experiment of getting a small aquarium for my office in order to see if it was worth getting a larger one for Freya for Christmas? Well, I concluded the experiment today. The final living being (let's count back through the five different fish and two snails I've had since Spring Break), which was a pretty golden snail, had been floating for nearly two weeks. That's actually not that unusual for snails--they go into a dormant state and don't move for a long time. But...it had been a long time. Also, from my reading, the snail's body slides out of its shell upon its demise, and the body was still in there. Anyway, I jiggled the tank a little this morning, and grody little pieces of dead, disintegrating snail drifted out. I about hurled. So as I said, the experiment has reached its conclusion now and the final analysis says, "Hell no, we're not getting Freya an aquarium!"

Ho ho ho.

Well, we sold Matt's truck today. What a learning experience that was! It would have been less educational had we had the truck paid off, but figuring out how to transfer title and stuff was...interesting.

More interesting was how to actually collect money from the buyer. He wanted to write us a check, and all that went through my mind was, "In God we trust, all others pay cash. And I don't even trust Him." So it turned out that if we deposited this guy's check, our bank wouldn't let us even access the money for at least 7 days (while they were making sure the check was good), and possibly as long as 11 days. Sheesh. So we stuck to our guns and ended up getting a cashier's check, and Matt deposited it today.

Tomorrow or the next day, or possibly Thursday, we'll be the owners of a super-duper yuppiemobile...a Honda CRV. Scoff all you want--it's not a minivan, and our insurance is going down $120 a year. Can't sneeze at that!

Just two months shy of two years old! You're so much more a little kid than a baby now. I was watching you run down the hallway yesterday and I realized that instead of toddling from side to side like a sailor on a ship, you now run very close to the way you will after adolesence. Your legs reach farther ahead of you than before, and you're faster. You're also doing great on the stairs, but I'm still a little too nervous about your rate of descent to take the gates down.

I am amazed at how many of the words you know to many songs. You can sing the last two or three words in each line of most of your favorites. While that doesn't sound like a huge accomplishment, I think it is because hearing the spoken word and understanding/recognizing it is a lot different than hearing those words sung. But you understand and you sing along as much as you can.

We made your first snowman yesterday. It took me forever to convince you that wearing your snowpants was a good thing, but now you don't want to go outside without them.

Sleep is again a difficult issue for you. Your nights have regulated a little over the last few days, but you're still waking to nurse about five times before morning. (That's an improvement over 8-10 times like last week, mind you.) There are still no signs of your two-year molars, and we cannot figure out what else could be causing your restlessness.

You're still smallish, but I think you're gaining on the other kids in your school. You are definitely not the littlest kid there anymore (either in age or stature) and based on the eating binge you went on the last two weeks, you're definitely using the food as building blocks as well as fuel. Your favorite things to eat are spaghetti, pizza, string cheese and drinkable yogurt. More than anything else, you like to sit on either daddy's or my lap and read stories. You probably end up hearing at least ten stories each day and you're just insatiable. I've nearly got "Stellaluna" memorized, and so do you.

You're the world to me, sweetheart.
Love,
Mommy

P.S. I really hate my hat. Just so you know.

I just bought what I consider to be one of the world's funniest t-shirts. See it here. It's funniest when you put it in the context of my former employer, that organization most closely associated with that particular cultural icon. (The large hairy one.)

I also bought one that said, "Pickles are cucumbers soaked in evil." Exactly.

Urgh. I am so danged tired. The last four or five nights, Freya has literally been waking up every hour. And really, I'd say an hour is one of the longer stretches of sleep that she's had. I'm hoping it is her second year molars coming in--I need some resolution here. I know sleep things are very phasal (is that a word?), and I am so ready for this phase to pass.

I'm planning on nightweaning her over the week of Christmas. I understand that helps a great deal, and I know she's ready for it. And probably the most importantly, I am ready for it.

Zzzz...sorry, I nodded off a little there.

In unrelated news, Matt is trying to sell his truck so that we can buy a Honda CRV. We don't ever use the truck for hauling anything, and we'd like to get some better mileage. In fact, he's out with a guy who is test-driving it right now. Send good vibes that he's our buyer. And if you know anyone near Boise who wants to buy a 2004 Nissan Titan, let me know.

I'm off to fall asleep in the middle of cooking dinner.

We put on the Christmas dog this weekend. We went to CostCo and picked up our photo cards on Saturday morning. And if anyone would like to get one, please post a comment to that effect on this post and I'll e-mail you for your mailing address (if I don't already have it). You'll be glad you did--we are good looking people.

We then headed to Lowe's and bought our Christmas tree. We had a hard time convincing Freya that a tree in the house was a good thing. Once it was up, she started to get a little panicky and was saying, "No tree, no tree," but then we started putting the lights up and she changed her mind. Now the Christmas tree is her preferred play area. We haven't had any broken ornaments...yet.

That morning I had been watching The Today Show, and a very spiffy male interior designer was talking about innovative ways to decorate your home for the holidays. I learned several lessons as a result of that segment later in the day. One: stringing twinkle lights around tomato cages to make little outdoor Christmas tree displays is not as easy as it sounds. Two: if you're going to try that, best to do it inside, instead of outdoors where you are freezing your poor fingers. And three: it might be a good idea to plug the light string in before you spend 20 minutes winding it around a tomato cage.

But we got our outside lights up (minus tomato cage trees) and the tree is done, and I have festively strung garlands of tinsel along our bannister. The giant snowman snowglobe is not up yet (I got it for $10 at a Home Depot clearance sale--can you BELIEVE?!), but that's because we've been having wind gusts and I don't want my snow globe to end up in Burley, Idaho.

Anyway, happy pre-holiday. Cards will go out this week, so if you want one, be sure to post in the comments!