Thursday, February 26, 2009

Thoughts, in no particular order

1. Kids sure are germy. I really didn't need to catch this bug from Big Girl. I've been miserably congested, snotty, coughing, bleh for days...

2. Two is now attempting to exploit his drippy nose, even though he's mostly better, as an excuse to skip school. The kid's only two. He told me he needed to stay home today because he was too sick to go to school. He really just wanted to watch Bob the Builder and eat fruit snacks.

3. Why, exactly, is Big Girl such a whiner about getting water in her eyes while bathing? Not soap - just water! It annoys me a little, although I'm trying my best to be patient and help her work through it.

4. Two LOVES baths, and showers, but only the playing in the water part. He doesn't actually want to be soaped up and cleaned. And he whines when it's over and he has to get out.

5. I got a lot of stuff at the Walmart this morning, stuff we needed. And yet there's still no food in the house. Well, nothing quick and easy. If I wanted to soak some dried beans and make a soup from scratch, we'd be set...

6. Hubs' car is paid off! Yay! We're making some progress, although at times it seems more like treading water.

7. Some days I fear that my children have inherited some of my worst qualities. But then they do sweet things and surprise me, and I don't worry so much.

8. Tissue manufacturers have a pretty good racket on their hands. We're going through lots o' boxes around here. Even with the tissue boxes placed out of kid reach, so they can't be as wasteful and playful with them as they wish...

9. When they were younger, both Big Girl and Two had more adventurous palates. I miss that. I bet they would both shun Indian food now, whereas Big Girl ate everything we got her from the buffet at our favorite restaurant back in NC.

10. I'm really slack sometimes. I still haven't mailed a gift to a friend that I meant to mail over a month ago. It's boxed up by the front door and has been sitting there for over a week.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Semantics

Today is Ash Wednesday. I decided to give up ice cream for Lent, which is harder for me than some people (say, the lactose intolerant), because I LOVE ice cream. Plus I woke up this morning to find the Blue Bell Creamery e-newsletter in my inbox, listing all of the fantastic flavors in rotation for March. Which leads me to parse my words a bit: I just meant I wouldn't eat ice cream during Lent. There's nothing in that that says I can't buy a gallon of Mocha Madness and stash it in my parents' deep freeze until mid-April. And, well, I'll have to camouflage it in some way so my dad won't eat it all. Because he's even worse about ice cream, and he hasn't said anything about giving it up for Lent. He also has no respect for "dibs" and the like. So the only way it will survive is if he doesn't know it's there. Once upon a time, he left coffee flavored ice creams alone because he didn't know he liked them. Then at some point - I think when I was in college - he got desperate enough to try coffee ice cream and figure out that he liked it, too. So now nothing is sacred in the way of ice cream. He even eats my mom's sugar free ice cream if it's the first stuff he finds.

Being sick?

Stinks. Particularly when you're the adult who's supposed to be taking care of two sick, whining, miserable kids, and yet you don't feel up to taking care of anyone.

If only it were feasible for us to run through all of the germs now, knowing that we won't get sick again later. Wish it worked that way.

I do have to say, however, that my sinus surgery worked nicely. I have a lot of congestion, but it seems to be moving right along, as opposed to setting up a blockade in my sinuses and developing into a nasty painful infection. I know I would be in a lot more pain from my sinuses now, if not for that surgery. I'm pretty uncomfortable, but not as bad as it could be...

My poor kids both have very dry lips which are cracking open. A consequence, I think, of their high fevers of last week and weekend, which led their lips to peel, plus the cold weather. Usually they like it when I swipe their lips with chapstick and lip treatments, but they're complaining now due to the cracked lips.

We all stayed home from school today, although I had no choice but to go to work this evening. Someone's got to teach the college kids about the fantastic world of poetry.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Quizzy stuff

My Political Views
I am a left moderate social libertarian
Left: 3.32, Libertarian: 1.88

Political Spectrum Quiz

My Foreign Policy Views
Score: -2.54

Political Spectrum Quiz

My Culture War Stance
Score: -5.13

Political Spectrum Quiz


These are my results from the Political Spectrum quiz - kind of interesting, no?

Thursday, February 19, 2009

A little something educational...


THE LOVE STORY:How To Avoid Trapped Arm Whilst Cuddling In Bed

It's official:

I'm sick. And the itchy-throat-ear-sensation is driving me mad. Arrrggh!

A series of quick thoughts:

I wish I had the space, setting, and mental energy to grow a garden. Not going to happen this year, but I can dream.

I have too much crap in my house. Every day I find more and more, and I don't need so much of it.

People who don't turn on their headlights when it starts to get dark - particularly the ones who drive dark cars - scare me. I get really unnerved when I realize there's a car there and I can barely see it.

In a related note, I'm sometimes one of those annoying people who will flash her headlights on and off to try to tell approaching cars that they need to turn on their headlights.

My dogs are wrestling on the back deck again. Do they do this all the time, or do they wait until it's quiet enough for me to hear them out there making a racket?

I also wish I had a good spot for a large chest deep freezer, in which I could keep the produce from my imagined garden, along with smaller portions of soups and stews to heat and eat for weeknight meals.

Green/red/yellow bell peppers are over-used in prepared foods, particularly the frozen stuff like skillet meals. They don't taste that good, just strong, plus they make me sick to my stomach. And I hate having to study the ingredients list to see if they're in a product before I buy it. I've learned not to rely upon the picture of the meal on the packaging.

Hubs and I bought a Dyson early in our marriage, and it continues to serve us well (knock on wood). It's parked in this room at present. It's not the special pet-fur model but it still did a decent job with dog fur back when we had indoor dogs.

This colder weather is making me get really dry, itchy skin. Yuck.

My daughter's recent decision not to eat tater tots, french fries, and the like puzzles me. I wondered where she got it from. She used to eat these delicious potato products and love them. Almost as much as her brother, who would subsist on Sonic tater tots and fruit juice alone if permitted.

Hubs got me a label maker for Valentine's Day and I love it. I mentioned this at work today and got some weird looks, but I think it's one of the best gifts he's given me in years.

I wonder what I should start calling Two on this blog after he turns three in April... I could still call him Two, since he's the second in birth order, but would that be confusing?

Speaking of birth order - I've read several studies and articles discussing the impact of birth order on a child's development, and I think it's really interesting. I watch for signs of the influence of birth order in my own kids, and I can definitely see some of it at work in Hubs' family. Alas, I am an only child, but that has its influence as well.

Late night ramblings

It's late. I'm awake, can't sleep. I've been watching tv but got tired of it - I can only watch for so long before my eyes get all funky and dried out. My sweet Big Girl has kindly shared her germs, and my throat's bugging me. Plus my ears itch, deep inside my ears close to my throat - do you ever get that? Drives me nuts.

It rained a lot today. So the kids spent too much time indoors, cooped up, slightly hyper. Hopefully I can take them out for some fresh air tomorrow.

I'm loving PaperbackSwap again - I have several books to mail off in the morning, and then soon I'll get the credits to request more books to read. Not sure what I'll request next - so many books, it's hard to decide. I have an extensive list, which keeps growing longer and longer, of books I want to read over at goodreads. And, well, honestly I have plenty of books I could read here in my house - but that won't stop me from requesting more to add to my to-read collection. I've been indulging in a lot of fantasy, sci-fi-type stuff lately, which is fun and engaging without being too demanding (in the way that I can't help myself when I read works by authors I studied seriously in grad school), and I've been working through a few behavioral-type books dealing with kids and relationships, too. Any books I shouldn't miss? Let me know in the comments.

I watched Hanging Up earlier today - I DVRed it when it was on a few days back - and was reminded, through the relationship between Meg Ryan's character and her father, played by Walter Matthau (love him), that you can't make people be who you want or need them to be. No matter how desperately you wish a relationship or a person were something better, or more meaningful, or supportive, whatever, you cannot force other people to be who you want them to be, or who you think they should be. I know this is true, of course, but sometimes it's still incredibly frustrating. The movie's cheesy. Decent casting, but a somewhat frivolous plot that was resolved a little too neatly, and yet it still made me tear up. I'm an easy crier. Anyway, I've been reminding myself frequently of late, in the middle of frustrations, that I can only control myself. It's hard for me to make peace with that concept.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

A Most Excellent Day

Hubs got it this year. No boxes of assorted chocolates, which I've never liked that much. A sweet, thoughtful card. A new hand mixer (!) to replace the one that died a couple of months ago. And a label maker. I think the label maker is my favorite. Have I mentioned my love of office supplies? Now I can label my stuff. And the kids' stuff. I'm excited! He did very well this year.

I hope he liked his presents. I made him an appointment for a massage, which he said he really enjoyed, and I got a rolling laundry hamper for our room. And a couple of movies on DVD that he will hopefully enjoy.

Today has been a very low-key day. My sweet Big Girl is still sick, coughing and dripping and miserable, and she has a bad raw area around her nose from a bit of rough treatment with the tissues. I got her the soft ones, but she's a little too fervent in her nose-wiping sometimes. I'm trying to teach her to pay and blow, not wipe so hard, but her little nose is pitiful and raw.

Two may be getting it too. He has coughed a few times - no nose issues yet, knock on wood. The way the two of them play together and love on each other (when not wrestling), they tend to share all of their germs freely. Fortunately they're out of school next week, so there's plenty of time for them to rest and recover.

I made monte cristo sandwiches for dinner, at Hubs' request. They were good. I even used Wonder Bread for him - he purchased a loaf for that purpose, although I would never buy the stuff. I like good, hearty wheat breads. But the results were good, despite the questionable "bread" he required. We also ate well earlier with Hubs' special French toast, so that this day was a steady progression of unhealthy and tasty foods. The kids ate too many tractor snacks and were briefly wild and energized. They're addicted to them, and are also really stocked about the new Wonder Pets snacks, too (have I mentioned that Two can sing the entire Wonder Pets theme song? in addition to childhood classics like Twinkle, Twinkle).

Monday, February 9, 2009

Darn you, Henry Ruschmann!

I know it is coming, and soon. She's been talking about it since the middle of last week. I know that it is heart-shaped, and she made it herself, and I will love it. But, alas, I also know that it will bring annoying little sparkly bits into my house, little bits that I will find in random places, stuck to the bottoms of socks, catching the light from some obscure location like the inside of the freezer or the tip of a dog's nose, for months, even years to come. Glitter. The Valentine's card that my sweet girl is making for me will be beautiful and glittery - I knew even before she told me about the glitter, because I spotted some sparkling in her hair. I will love it because she made it for me with love, and she's the sweetest little girl ever - but I may encase it in a plastic baggie before it enters my home. To minimize the spread.

Previous glitter-covered artistic creations are displayed in my office at work, in case you wondered - they're tacked to the bulletin board next to my desk, so those glittery creations - a gold leaf by the boy, and several glitter-covered pictures by the girl - haven't brought their lovely sparkly bits into the house. And Henry Ruschmann? He's the man who invented glitter in its current cheap, mass-produced form.

Bullying

Four year old girls are bullies. And victims of bullies. And it's not just "the way girls act" and the girls who are threatened emotionally and/or psychologically - which is the preferred methodology among girls, as opposed to threats of physical violence - are not to blame. Teachers who ignore this problem or deny that it is a problem need to change their ways of thinking and acting.

I'm doing a good bit of reading up on the topic, and recognizing and identifying some baggage from my past in the process. I'll try to report more once I finish reading Odd Girl Out, which, by the way, is quite a fascinating book.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Near-misses

I've been poking around on Facebook, as I do far more frequently than the Hubs would like (he makes remarks about how the house would look if I channeled time and energy into cleaning it). And I've been thinking a bit about people I've known, but not as well as I wish I had. I don't have a lot of good friends in my current locale, and I've been thinking about some of the great people I know who are just too far away at present. Not just the dear friends I miss, but the ones I would love to spend time with, get to know, that kind of thing - the ones I wish I had spent more time with when we were closer in space.

I'm not great with developing friendships. I'm kind of shy and awkward sometimes, and so I often find myself in the position of thinking that someone seems really interesting, like someone I should know better - and yet I never get to know that person better. Meh. I should take a closer look, however, for the people here who are interesting, since I can be fairly certain that, if I were elsewhere, I would find people *here* that I should have gotten to know better.