Hmmm...that pic of me is pretty honkin' big. Before dropshots "improved" itself, the photos sized themselves to the right height and width. pffft. You know I don't want to get technical. Especially right now, when I have 13 minutes to eat breakfast, make a salad, and head out the door. So, I guess we'll all just have to deal with my big honkin' head. Pfft, I say. Pfft.
~t
We went to the zoo last week. It was pretty fun. It certainly was a gorgeous place, nestled right above the Puget Sound. We always have mixed emotions about the zoo. Because we love animals. Are zoos good or bad for animals? Mmmmm. Mixed emotions. I'm sure zoos do a lot of good and mostly animal lovers work or volunteer there. (Right? You'd have to be, right?) It was fun taking Zane. It was his first time. Lemme see if I can find our favorite picture
I seem to know lots of folks who are having babies. A lot of the folks having babies are people who had babies when I had my baby. It seems too soon to me to have another baby. The one I have is just learning new ways to drive me crazy. Don't get me wrong, I love him to pieces. He is definitely one of the best things to have happened to me, but sheesh, are those babies a lot of work. We are ready to be done. So, it floors me when I hear of my contemporaries with kids who are 2 or younger going on one or even TWO new kids since then. I guess I was built differently. I thought about just popping two out, wam bam. And then we decided: naaaaaah. We could just not take it. Maybe we are too old. Or too selfish. Self? What is that? Anyway, kudos to those of you who can take care of a bunch of kids. And congrats to all the new moms and moms-to-be out there. (and dads, too!)
~t
Time for a little bit of fun. I'm not sure I really agree with this, although much of it rings true. I *wish* my house were neat.
| You Are Bert |
 Extremely serious and a little eccentric, people find you loveable - even if you don't love them! You are usually feeling: Logical - you rarely let your emotions rule you You are famous for: Being smart, a total neat freak, and maybe just a little evil How you life your life: With passion, even if your odd passions (like bottle caps and pigeons) are baffling to others |
Yikes. I just don't understand the haters out there.
I think it was yesterday.
I got a comment on one of my YouTube videos.
I had been playin' around with YouTube and vlogging a while back. I'm sure some of my vids were better than others. They were low quality, sure. I didn't look my best, sure. But, mostly, I was just having fun and chronicling our lives on my other blog. I was talking about my weight loss.
So, the comment I received on one of my videos of myself talking about something about my weight loss goals(I was too embarrassed to go back and watch it again), said this:
"One pound a week? You suck. And do something with your eyebrows."
Uhhhh...I'm pretty sure I mentioned that I knew my eyebrows needed grooming. But thanks.
And, honestly, I WISH I'd been losing at one pound per week since whenever I made that video. I'd probably be close to my goal. That's a great, doable, reasonable goal that will get a person somewhere.
But...
"You suck."
?????
I'm pretty sure I even fixed the person's grammar in my translation. I don't believe they used any capitalization or proper punctuation in their slam. Let me assure you that I do NOT suck. How RUDE!
I deleted it right away. I didn't block the person. It made me feel bad. Not super bad, just a little bit irked. And I have a pretty decent amount of self-knowledge and self esteem. Ok, I put myself out there, but sheesh. And it made me feel a little bad for that person who had nothing to do but watch random low quality videos and come up with nasty comments and actually POST them to someone's videos. What's next? Are they going to go to my pictures posted online and tell me my kid is ugly? (He so is NOT.) Is this a generational thing? Do I just not get it because I'm too old? Is this what the kids are doin' these days?
Ok, honestly, I might go through the first few steps. Watch random, low quality videos. Come up with my own slams on the contents. But I would not POST those slams.
When I really think about it, it's so silly. This person did not even critique me for the low quality of the video or the contents, which was probably some boring, mundane facts about my life and weight loss. They critiqued my totally reasonable goal of 1 lb a week and my ungroomed eyebrows. How ridiculous! And yet, it made me feel bad. Bad enough to write paragraph after paragraph about it here.
Bad enough to post that person's youtube account and ask you all to go write slams on HER videos.
Just kidding. I won't do that. It's just not me.
I'm not a hater. I'm sure you're not either.
I hope you all have a good day! Even you, silly haters.
~t
I'm so happy to be writing again. I'm so happy to be a mom. But the two don't go together real well. Blogging may be the only kind of writing I can really do right now. Short bursts while the child sleeps or is momentarily happy entertaining himself. But while he sleeps, he could wake at any moment (and he often does).
I take different assignments on my blog. Some from myself for my own well-being. Some from others because I am interested and I get monetary reimbursement. I sit here considering assignments, and in the back of my mind, I always think, "Will this assignment, like many, many others, be interrupted or aborted or finished too quickly because of the call of 'Mommy'?"
It's a tough balance. Do I take this assignment and take that risk? Do I let it go? Do I wish away my child's younger years? So far, I have not. But until recently I was content to just be mom. Now I have the writing bug again. I cannot just be mom for the rest of my life. I will now always be mom. I need to be more again. But can I? Or perhaps the question is, "How can I?" How do I create the balance? How do I win the gamble? Will I get this done? Should I try? If I do, will it be good enough? Will it matter to anyone but me? If it matters to only me, does it still matter?
Ahhhh...Mercury Retrograde.
~t
I don't really clip coupons. (I use some online ones.) I don't always look for the best deal. I'm not really a penny pincher. We waste money sometimes. We do crazy things.
But for some reason, I will leave the hand soap in my bathroom or kitchen for way too long because I feel the need to get every last drop of soap out of the container. It always irritates me, because then you never get enough soap. Or the pump falls over. But I never even realized I did that until today. I was doing it in my utility room, even though I had a brand new, better soap right next to it.
How much does hand soap cost? $3? $4? Maybe more for some really nice stuff. (We didn't have really nice stuff in there.) How much am I saving by using every last drop? Not much. Like I care. WHAT was I saving it for? Finally, when I realized my neurosis (and that I do it all the time), I just threw that thing out. I feel so free.
~t
I think the waning moon probably is playing some part in my desire to curl up into a ball of jammies and not wear contacts today. It's that old game from childhood revised. Maybe if I don't see you (contacts), you won't be able to see me. Maybe it's the end of a cycle. It seems to be the end of a lot of cycles lately. My handy dandy little sidebar widget has been reminding me of the moon. That's why I put it there. Oddly, since I've had my kid I've become more disconnect from mother moon and the planets (and no, that's not a band).
As a fledgling astrology student, I am aghast at myself. On any given day, I don't know where all the planets are. Ok, lemme think, I could tell you from Jupiter on out. That's despicable. I mean, if I think I can always tell you the sun. But I do not know where the moon, Mercury, Venus, or Mars are right now. I'm sure that sounds weird to the lay people, but when I was really studying, I made it my business to ALWAYS know where the planets were in the sky. It just seemed the responsible thing to do. The moon can be hard to keep track of--she moves every couple days, so that one I could tend to forgive.
Anyway, I like the widget, so I wanted to call your attention to it. And off me? Ha ha. If you like it too, you can get it here. I found it on LaDonna's blog originally. Hmmm...I thought I found it there, but now I don't see it. Sorry if I'm missing giving someone credit.
Here's what it looks like:
Cool people like Kevin Smith movies, right? I try. I have a love/hate relationship with Kevin Smith movies. I always go in thinking, "Ok, I'll give this a try." Then, during the movie I often feel like even though the conversation is realistic, it feels contrived for some reason. Is it the acting? I don't know. It feels like one of those movies where the characters speak all the backstory in the beginning of the movie. Maybe they do. Interestingly enough, I felt like they did this a bit in Rent, too. (The common denominator being that Rosario Dawson was in both movies.)
And then they get gross. Too gross. I really don't want to see Jay's butt in a movie. Or many of the things they do and say in Kevin Smith movies. But then he does something hilarious and I keep watching, RIGHT as I was about to turn it off. And then it gets gross again, and then sentimental and then hilarious and I keep watching. But through like...oh...60% of the movie, I'm shaking my head at what Jay or someone else just did, thinking, "WHY am I watching this?" And then the hilarious thing happens and I stay with it. Often I'm sitting next to someone (often my husband) who is laughing riotously as I am just sitting there shaking my head. But I keep trying. Mostly tonight because it was my Kevin's birthday.
If you're wondering, it was Clerks II.
Ahhh...see...I just went to IMDB to get all those links. Kevin Smith was born in 1970. I always fall for people born in 1970. (Right, Amy? I mean Kevin.) But Kevin Smith is a Leo. I sometimes have a hard time with Leo energy. Perhaps this is the crux of it.
I kinda liked it. And I kinda didn't. Does that mean I'm kinda cool? Oh well.
Zane is up. Must go.
~t
So, Zane took forEVER to fall asleep tonight. And then he woke up about an hour after he went to sleep and I had to go back up there. And he took FOREVER to fall asleep again. It is cute and sweet, in a way--the way he rolls over and grabs me to make sure I'm not going anywhere. And yet, in another way, I just sometimes want to jump up and scream, "Go to sleep already. I have so much to do!!!" Luckily for me, my more rational side knows that would not work and would only ensure I'd be stuck in there for about another 30 minutes, minimum. Don't get me wrong--I really love cosleeping. It's great for so many reasons: the closeness, the security, etc. But the downsides just sometimes suck. Still, I wouldn't change it. I just find myself stuck in bed a lot!
~t
Ok, so no, I'm not Jewish. When I saw this Jewish Dating site, I wasn't quite sure what I thought about it. At first I thought it was a little too exclusive an idea for me. But, then I thought, "Well, I liked dating folks who had the same spiritual background and beliefs that I do, so what the heck."
Here's a vid that I also was unsure of. I know, I know...it's supposed to be funny. It's cute in a way. But, the end? I'm just not sure. I figured I'd post it and let you decide. Both the site and the video feel like they could be evocative of some good discussions. I think what made me less comfortable with the idea to begin with was, ironically, the description of the site name: koolanoo. In Hebrew, it means "all of us." But it seems to me, the site isn't about ALL of us, is it? Comments? (Comments are moderated here, and I don't want anything disrespectful, but I am curious what others think of this, both Jewish and non-Jewish folks.)
Anyway, here's the vid:
So, what did YOU think?
~t
After 21 months of cosleeping, I have noticed a thing or two about falling asleep. First of all, it's often very hard to lay down with your baby and get them to sleep without falling asleep yourself. (It's also very hard for me to know whether I should be typing "lay" or "lie".) At least it is for me.
It's the weirdest thing. It's like sleep just descends on the room at some point, and you better be on guard, or you're going out with the baby. What IS that? Kevin said it happens to him, too. Is there really a Sandman who comes along only at certain times and tries to take out as many people as possible? Does the little one lying next to me try to grab my spirit and take it with him? I sometimes can feel when he falls asleep. Not to creep anyone out, but it's similar to what I felt when I sat next to my stepfather as he died. It must be what it's like when we leave the body. A feeling of floating around the room. It feels free.
~t
