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My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Sister Shuriken of Reasoned Discussion.

Get yours.

didn't I say I needed a personal secretary?

If I didn't, I do.

Note to self:

don't forget cool idea for generating electricity that J & I talked about on the way to the museum
Tiger ROCKS
as does Dreamweaver - finish that webpage! (and the others)
what was I in the middle of? drat.

Pummelos are delicous.

I need several of me. Anybody got a transporter pad and is unscrupulous?

...speechless...

You know, I know how to juggle.

And I've wanted to try out DDR for a little while now.

But this... this is just...


This should be a new sport


Would you watch? :)

Wheeeeeeee!

When we finally got going today, we sure went! Took the kids to the Junior Museum (okay, I know they changed their name, but that's what it was all through my childhood and dammit that's what I'm going to call it) and bought a family membership (and I got this oooooo so cute stuffed otter; otters are my FAV) and saw a BUNCH of the animals today. No guest animal at the moment, but Spider Monkeys are coming!

Eee Eee Eee! As Moira would say.

It's really a lot of fun now that she's old enough to really enjoy it. I can't wait until she can go to their preschool program.

We got some more errands run, and came home absolutely bushed and just in time to listen to "Says You" on NPR. Kids are now in bed, and I'm working on budgets, schedules, to-do lists...

I hope this gorgeous cool weather lasts!

It is way too early to be up on a Saturday.

Of course, that means I get to enjoy the post-rain chillyness and birdong... it's weird, it's almost May and it's still nippy outside - it's AWESOME. It's so nice that it's not sweltering yet.

Last night was a lot of fun. Mom came over after work on her way home, I gave her a foot massage with some vitamin E oil (yay Burt's Bees) and used the warm water massage/bubble foot bath... J made a wonderful bicolor cheese tortilini with marinara sauce that had buffalo, sauted onions, button mushrooms... yum yum yum. We listened to music; it's the first time J & I have spent an evening listening to music and singing along in a looong time. (I'd forgotten how sexy a musical man is - rowr!) It was fun, we were exposing mom to all sorts of neato things - Sting, Alison Krauss, The Pogues, They Might Be Giants, Billy Joel, Old Crow Medicine Hour, Bob Dylan, Jeff Buckley, Flying Burrito Bothers, Graham Parsons - it was wonderful. J even got his guitar out later, and picked out some songs... Both kids fell asleep in our arms.

Hell, I keep falling asleep sitting up here in the recliner.

I think it might have been the music, or perhaps the herbal tea but I had some amazingly vivid dreams last night. Vivid, dramatic, evil, disturbing, and thank goodness going away right now.

I'm going to go make myself some tea.

I love my mother-in-law.

I've had several MILs. This one, however, is one that I'd like to be friends with even if I hadn't married her son.

She called me out of the blue earlier this evening, and asked if I was able/interested in doing a spur-of-the-moment dinner with her. J said he could watch the kids, so I leapt at the chance. I really need to spend more time with her - I enjoy her company so much, but it always seems to go by so quickly...

On days when I'm feeling tired, stressed, and depressed, I need to remember moments like this. Moments where I feel so amazingly lucky to be where I am, with J, two beautiful children, family that I love (even when they're crazy, and I mean family I married into as well as my own)... I have so much to be thankful for, and for once I don't feel unworthy or guilty about it - yes, an average of 30,000 children under the age of 5 die from hunger-related problems a day. Yes, people in China are throwing away children - mostly female or deformed males. Yes, a raging conservative has been named the next pope. Yes, fundamentalists of all types are going around killing other people in an orgy of self-righteousness, and the United States government spends enough on Defense to feed the entire planet...

My mother-in-law reminds me that change for the better is done one person at a time. It's disturbingly "It's A Wonderful Life"-esque, but it's accurate: I know, at this moment, that I have made more of an impact than I realize I have, and that ANY impact is better than none. I realize that I cannot change the world, or solve the worlds' problems, or even solve my parents' problems - in fact, sometimes I even have trouble solving my OWN problems - but my day-to-day existence makes a difference I'm not even aware of.

Thanks, Kaye. I admire you greatly, I enjoy your company, and I'm glad I know you.

A MONTH? AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH

J wanted to give them two weeks. They wanted him to give two MONTHS. So they compromised.

All I have to say is they'd better realize that he's a damn nice guy to do this.

And I hope the client goes out of business and the company gets a decent client. Or hell, let's be optimistic and say they've got more than one client. And that they've got somebody who knows something about contracts going over theirs before they get raped by some other opportunistic client.

I can't wait until J starts his new job.

He's taking Moira out to a college baseball game tonight, isn't that cute? I think Daddy dates are good for little girls. Besides, she needs some time where she's getting all the attention, and not because she's sat on the cat or knocked over Christian.

I'm going to go be grumpy. Bleargh.

And another week starts

I'm trying to think of current life more like a whetstone rather than a grindstone. That way, at the end of all this, I can consider myself a sharpened blade, rather than a crushed kernel.

Last night was fun; Patrick came over and we all hung out. J made sloppy joes out of buffalo meat (very tasty; and it's been YEARS since I had a sloppy joe) and tater tots... childhood memories for the guys. While they were out getting buns, J found mascarpone cheese, so we finally made the tiramisu from scratch that we'd gotten 99% of the ingredients for weeks ago.

Wow. Totally worth the work (which really wasn't all that much anyway.) I'm going to do my darndest not to eat all the rest of it today. I'm in one of those almost compulsive eating phases; J says it might be stress.

Talked to my mother-in-law last night. The verdict is non-Hodgkins lymphoma. I don't know WHICH non-Hodgkins lymphoma, evidently there are tons of different kinds. So I'm not sure how long she's got. Other than my husband or my children, I honestly can't think of somebody that I'd want to die less. I've often told J that when my dad dies, I'm probably going to fall apart - and now I'm not sure that he's going to be the first parent to go. She's going to China at the end of June; I can't wait to hear how her trip goes.

So J wanted to take today off for mental health - he's starting a new job soon (THANK GOD) and of course today is a work day from hell; everything breaking, client freaking, the works... I wish he could just say "you know what? I don't work here anymore; go climb a tree" but he's much nicer (and more professional) than that. What sucks is that his boss is really trying not to call him, but what can I say? My hubby is hard to replace. Tell me something I didn't know.

So while I sit here eating lunch with the kids, I'm trying to organize my computer/phone, researching monolithic domes, what the process is for building a house, working on a budget to get us there... it's like that dance the bunny hop, except I take 3 hops back for every one hop forward - for every thing checked off my to-do list, I add several more.

But how can you be down when your iTunes shuffles you from "Bitchin Camaro" to "When I'm 64" to "Superstition"?

I need my own project manager.

I am a work in progress. I need a project manager. Seriously! Of course, I'd probably end up resenting the hell out of the PM... Perhaps I'll create a sub-section of my personality to be PM. Here goes:

List of things to do (grouped in order of priority)

Keep kids alive (fed, healthy, etc - the daily stuff)
Keep J & myself alive & sane (daily house maintenance stuff)

Unpack & put away everything
(set aside stuff for garage sale)
Have garage sale
Throw neighborhood "Getting to know you" party
Clean parents' pool

Set up schedule - look into activities (tumbling, pottery, etc)
Finalize budget, set up savings & retirement accounts
Work on personal/family/kids webpages
Work on creating photo albums for relatives (include Mamaw's bathroom shots, framed)
Work on yahoo group webpage & pictures
Work on Multiply webpage
Work on any of the hundreds of projects I've started (corkboard, knitting, trashcan collages, Delicious Library, bookplate stamp, felt wall, etc.)


Work on any of the things I'm learning (mandolin, French, Vietnamese, Spanish, German, Italian, Farsi, Hebrew, tilework, quilting, stained glass, wheel throwing pottery, photography...)

Okay, plenty to do - I'd better get off this silly blog and go!

soooooo tired

Today was Moira's appointment with the evaluation team - she qualifies for their program, and after I talk to our insurance company, we'll probably be starting speech therapy for her. It's nice to know that professionals think she's perfectly fine (and pretty darn nifty) with the only exception being her articulated language.

The kids fell asleep on the way home, which sadly enough was enough to recharge them - so when I tried to put them to bed when I got home there was no way. Which is bad, because I'm about to fall asleep myself, and I needed the nap.

Aw, what the heck. Let's try to put at least one of them down again... oh, and take the iron pills I finally got, dangit.

You... and me...

we're the kind of people other people would like to be...

Some days I lose perspective. Hell, most days my perspective is at least a little skewed. I'm sure nobody that knows me finds that a surprise.

Wand'ring free...

I've forgotten so many things in my life... I'm not yet thirty (okay, I will be this year) and I sometimes wonder if I'm suffering from some early onset of senility.

My first husband used to say I had selective memory. If that were totally true, there are several memories involving him that I'd choose to permanently misplace in my mental filing cabinet.

However, that being said, I have managed to misplace quite a few memories that seemed to be more painful than useful. Misplace, or at least blur some.

We present the kind of picture people are glad to see

It took me about 12 years to become a part of a healthy, happy partnership. It required I do a lot of soul-searching - something I've done since I can remember anyway, but for years I did it with a filter that made most of the results useless. I learned a lot from two failed marriages and my parents' relationship - a lot of stuff to write down in the "what NOT to do" category.

That's why examples of communication problems resonate with me. Our ex-friends Shawna & Kris couldn't communicate, and when I finally reached overload with being the listening ear and shoulder to cry on, and told them that I'd been saying they should go to counseling for months now, and that I didn't want to be involved in the drama anymore - they stopped talking to us altogether. Part of me feels bad, and hopes they're doing okay - and part of me is relieved to be ignorant, as my cynical voice says that I doubt anything has changed.

Of course, looking back at MY history, I'm sure there have been plenty of people looking at me with cynical voices saying that they didn't think I'd change. Probably Erinn, most recently.

I will say this, it wasn't easy. It took almost losing marriage #3 to make the breakthrough complete, I believe.

It's why I have such a hard time watching my parents interact. Even before I could walk, I was overly empathetic. Mom tells me of times when as a toddler I would rub her head when she had a headache. I've always been an interesting mix of empathetic and egotistically self-absorbed. It made puberty an absolute hell. I want people to be happy. I ache for unhappy people. For years, I handed out girl scout cookies made of my compassion, my energy, and my guilt (thank you Robert for the girl scout cookie machine analogy) and left nothing for myself.

Going from that place, to this... it occasionally brings me to tears. How amazing life is.

And we don't care that tomorrow comes with no guarantee

My husband is a wonderful influence on me when it comes to letting go. Letting things go is a skill I'd never learned. I really think it is a necessary skill to maintain sanity, especially in today's world. Who knows, maybe after many years together, I'll be able to let go of my self-consciousness enough to learn to dance.

We've each other for company...
And come what may, you and me
Will stay together...

I'd forgotten how difficult a divorce is. The levels of anger, hurt, despair, confusion, guilt... somehow, I've been through it twice, and I guess it's like pain memory - they say people don't really remember pain to its fullest extent. Having now had two children, I have to agree - any woman that could remember pain in its entirety would probably never have more than one child. My psyche has blanked out some things. I'm left holding the empty file folder and hoping there wasn't anything important in it... because I'd like to be able to help. I've figured out where my limits are; I'm much better at being honest with myself - and others - about what I'm capable of, and where I have to draw the line. I value people who allow me to draw a line - because I've discovered that without my own personal strength and sanity, I'm incapable of being a friend to anybody. I can't make girl scout cookies with nothing left in the pantry. I've finally learned some self-respect, and have learned that people who do not respect me do not deserve my cookies. So in a way, it's a good thing that at this time in my life I have so few friends - I'm still figuring out my recipes, and this gives me time to go slowly.

year after year
Won't we my dear...

Next month is our third anniversary. Maybe we'll actually remember it this time. :)

We'll always be
you
and
me

It took me 28 years to figure out who I am. Without that knowledge, I would be incapable of even SEEING who you are. (Or appreciating you, either.)

I'm elated at how far I've come.
I'm humbled by how far I have yet to go.
I'm glad I get to do it with my best friend.

I hope everybody can get there.

I LOVE NPR

And This American Life is awesome.

Mom has suggested we start an improv group like this one here in Tallahassee - who's in? Andy, wish you were able to join us, you'd be great at this.

Improv Everywhere

It's four a.m... do you know where your babu is?

You know, I occasionally think about the minor oddity that is pet names people have in a relationship. I've been married twice before, but never really had a pet name with either previous husband... #2 tried some cutesy stuff, but there was no context, so nothing stuck. Babu, however, came as a typo one day when J & I were talking back and forth on IM. I don't remember now who did it - J might. Anyway, we thought it was cute, and it stuck. Anyway, I occasionally think of how odd it is that my husband and I use a pet name that is actually a slur...

ba·bu also ba·boo
n. pl. ba·bus, also ba·boos
1. Used as a Hindi courtesy title for a man, equivalent to Mr.
2. a) A Hindu clerk who is literate in English.
b) (Offensive.) A native of India who has acquired some superficial education in English.


I hope if we ever develop Indian friends that they have a sense of humour.

What pet names have you had? Or what pet names have you always wanted?



Oh - and about the title: my babu is still at work, bringing the new webpage and all its attendant programs live tonight for the bank client. I'm hoping he'll be able to come home in the next couple of hours. Maybe, once he catches up on sleep, we can take the kids to the FSU Circus this weekend!

AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH

Which is worse - getting no sleep, or sleeping and having non-stop nightmares?

How about being woken up several times during the night and picking up where you left off on your nightmares?

Ugh.

Does life ever slow down?

What a week

Sunday was such a high, I think my borderline personality disorder is making these recent days low. *sigh* The closing song of the Tigger Movie almost made me cry. I think I'll go take some B vitamins.

I had a great time with Khang. He's a generous guy, and paid for everything (which is the only way I really could have gone, because we're broke - moving is expensive) and the concert was wonderful. I'd forgotten how much I liked Tori's music. I had a few moments of emotional upheaval at the beginning, remembering personal history when her music was in the house quite a bit - the time before J and I got together, and what a depressing, emotionally fucked up time that was. However, I managed to get past that and enjoy the concert, for which I am supremely greatful - maybe I'm getting better at this whole mental self-control thing after all. I helped Khang get his amazingly nice digital camera in, and he actually got some good shots - I can't wait to see the rest of them.

The chaos of the house grates on my nerves. I was so focused on getting the move done last week that it didn't get to me - but now I'm having a hard time with it. J is stressed to the gills with work - not only is his current job a clusterfuck, he's been hired in all but final paperwork at another place, so he's suffering from short-timers disease to boot. I'm looking for the PERI or LEDS life stress events checklist online; I'm sure his and mine are through the roof.

Fortunately the kids are great; mom's obeying the doctor's orders (for once) and I'm slowly but surely unpacking and putting the house together and getting us organized. I just have to remember that, like breathing, it's a never ending process.

I'm never moving again

12 hours after leaving home to work on the old house, we're back home. I'm so tired, I had trouble walking to my parents to pick up the kids. I can't ever remember being staggeringly tired, but now I know what that means.

However, in most ways, the house looks better than when we moved in 9 months ago, so it was worth it. Our landlord was a really nice guy, and I didn't want to cause him any grief. I'm hoping we keep in touch, actually.

Tori Amos tomorrow! Woohoo! And J, sweetheart that he is, is going to try to let me sleep in some tomorrow, because otherwise, as he points out, I might fall asleep during the concert.