28 years and 19 months and 30 weeks

I know I never post anymore. I've been busy. And lazy.

T-Rex is 19 months now. So far, I have to say that I love the toddler stage. He is such a happy, curious, lovely little human. He plays independently. He cuddles and listens to me read books. HE SLEEPS THROUGH THE NIGHT (most of the time). He goes places and does things. He's learning words but not is not yet at the exhausting chatterbox preschooler stage. It's lovely.

He likes cars, dogs, bunnies, birds, and water. He adores fruit, especially bananas and blueberries, and will eat it all day long. He also really loves corn on the cob, but he dislikes avocado, lettuces, and blackberries. He loves to dance, and has recently started "playing" his piano and xylophone and "singing" along. He gives the dogs hugs, pets the bunny, and runs around like crazy all the time.

My brother was in town last week and we took him to the aquarium. He shrieked with excitement about the beavers and otters, which he called "big bunnies" and "water bunny dogs," respectively. He also liked the various fish, but was slightly scared of the shark tunnel until Uncle Michael picked him up and carried him.

We've taken him berry picking twice, which is how we discovered he dislikes blackberries. I was trying to pick blackberries, and after picking a few and spitting them out, he ran away from me, straight for a blueberry bush, where he happily stayed for a good thirty minutes, munching away on blueberries.

He feeds the dogs every day (puts their pre-measured cups of food in their respective bowls), retrieves his plate or bowl for me from the shelf when it's time to eat, puts his dishes in the dishwasher afterward, and cleans up the living room each evening. He loves to help put things away in the kitchen, cook, and carry things for me. He's really quite helpful.

I'm also just about thirty weeks pregnant with boy number two. I'm worried, because I'm in such a nice groove with T-Rex and because frankly, I dislike infants (have I mentioned I don't do well with sleep deprivation? Also, babies are boring), but we're excited, too. T-Rex has no idea what he's in for, poor little guy. But the pregnancy is going smoothly and I hope the brothers will be friends.

I turned 28 last week. I also found my first gray hair. I'm busy with things other than the toddler and the pregnancy, but those do take up most of my energy. And they're the easiest to talk about. I've been reading a good bit, and doing stuff in the kitchen, and working, and volunteering with church things. The usual.

So there you go. Twenty-eight years and nineteen months and thirty weeks. That's where we are right now.

Six Months

Baby Rex is six months old now. What. It's hard to believe but at the same time it's not.

When my sister was born, I was four and my brother was two. We were duly excited for the new baby, and there is grainy home video of us running around excitedly and begging to hold her and watching her get her first bath.

But after a few weeks, we approached our mother, hand and hand, and said, "It's time for Baby to go home now. Her real mommy is missing her."

Mom tried to explain to us that no, Baby wasn't going anywhere, that she was Baby's real mommy and this was Baby's real home. But we were insistent. "No, you're our mommy. She has a different mommy and it's time for her to go to her real home."

Sometimes I feel like that about T-Rex. I'm wondering when his real mommy is going to show up, and if it's time for him to go to his real home yet. Even after six months, it's hard to wrap my mind around the fact that this is his home, that I am his mother, that he's not going to just go away, that having him around is not going to end (or not for a good eighteen or so years, anyway).

I love him fiercely. He's a funny little guy and a joy to have around most of the time. But I love a number of people--my husband, my parents, my siblings. This is different. Not because the love is greater (maybe it is, I don't know), but because it's less...independent, or something. Maybe that will change as he grows. But right now he's his own person but also kind of an extension of me, all at once.

It's perplexing. That's how I feel about him most of the time. Just sort of confused, like I'm not exactly sure how to feel about him.

He just started crying and I guess no one else is going to come and pick him up, so I will. Because I am his mother and maybe someday I'll feel like I am.

I am happy.

Do you remember the Roald Dahl novel Matilda, about the smart little girl whose abusive, neglected family situation led her to have magical powers?

Spoiler alert if you've never read it, but at the end, when she's been adopted and skips ahead five grades in school and is happy and loved and challenged--her powers fade away. They served her well when she was in distress, but she no longer needed them once everything was going well in her life.

Well, sometimes I feel like writing is that way for me. When I'm anxious and overwhelmed and depressed, I write a lot. All the time. The words come pouring out, processing all those Big Emotions.

But when I'm happy and content with my life...nothing.

And I'm happier now than I have been since I was a kid, I think.

It's not that I have nothing to say, but the impetus to put words on paper (or the screen) just isn't there.

But let me tell you how happy I am. For the last several years, I've doubted myself. See, I never had a plan for What I Want To Be When I Grow Up. Because I knew, I just knew, that I would stay home with my children like my mom did (in retrospect it was quite naive of me to assume that I was guaranteed a husband and children at all, but that's youth).

So I majored in English and German (with a history minor because why not?), which I enjoy greatly but which don't necessarily prepare you for any particular career.

I never expected to get married so early. I intended to go on to graduate school, maybe work at something (I had vague notions of a career in academia, I think). But I never put much thought into a future career, because there was nothing I was passionate about, nothing I really wanted to do despite being good at many things.

So, when the reality of finding work and working jobs hit, I was lost. I hadn't had a plan or a destination, and so I just sort of wandered aimlessly from job to job, all of which I was grateful to have at the time I had them, but none of which I ever enjoyed. And the longer I saw that future stretching in front of me, the more lost I felt. Apparently I had been wrong in thinking I would be a stay-at-home mom and everything would work out. Apparently I should have trained for something, because now I did nothing.

Eventually I ended up in the job I had been working. It was a very good job, making a reasonable amount of money, intellectually challenging, different and interesting and with a good title. But the boss is emotionally abusive. And it still wasn't really what I wanted to do.

I was downright depressed during my pregnancy thinking I would have to go back to that job (or any job, but especially that one), abandoning poor little T-Rex and, so far as I could see, ramping up my stress levels to eleven to no purpose except a financial one. \

(I still can't imagine how working moms do it, how they get up and get themselves and one or more kids ready and drop them off and go to work and are on on on all day and then go and get the kids again and come home and feed them all and somehow in there also do at least a minimum of laundry and cooking and housecleaning and quality time. I don't understand how they do it. I get burned out just thinking about it, and was spiraling deeper and deeper into a burnt-out depression contemplating that future while pregnant.)

Maybe if I enjoyed my job, if I had some sort of career ambitions or passion for my work or believed I was making a difference in the world, maybe then it would be different. But I didn't and don't.

Then somehow, miraculously, my boss agreed to let me work from home. I assist with some paperwork and record maintenance and other things I can do from my computer at home without being in the office. It's just a few hours here and there, but it pays our car insurance and some groceries and that's enough.

And so now I'm happy, truly happy, relaxed and content with my life, for the first time since college. I can keep on top of laundry and house cleaning. I get to nurse and play and watch my little guy all day. I go to exercise classes and funerals and all sorts of things I could never do before. I truck T-Rex around to grocery stores shopping the sales. I cook dinner. I pet the dogs.

It is still work--T-Rex is not really always a happy baby, and I still have a short temper. I'm taking seriously the responsibilities of having hot food on the table for us in the evening, of doing the various household chores that I used to split with the DDH.

But this, finally, is work I'm passionate about. Work I enjoy as well as excel at. The worst part of the day is the time I spend working for money, though at least I get to do it from home, when convenient for me.

Not everyone would be happy here. But I am. I don't know how long it will last; at some point my old boss is likely to get irritated and demand I either come in to the office or quit completely. At that point, if nothing has changed with the DDH's salary, I'm not sure what we'll do.

But for now, I'm treasuring this time, and I'm happy, and I'm sorry if I'm not on here much. I always wanted Matilda to be happy and have magical powers. Maybe I'll manage to make that happen in my own life.

This was a strange and rambly and not entirely coherent post, so here's a cute picture of T-Rex so it's not a total waste of your time ;-):

In a funny snow sack.

What I am into this month (September).

This is the view from the other side of my building than I
usually post. The smoke comes not from that tall building
but from the other side, as the Tulsa School of
Arts & Sciences burned down.

September has been a rough month. It's been busy, and most of the busyness has been good. But it's been sort of an emotional roller coaster, and a very rough time at work.

Anyway, here's the monthly roundup:

On My Nightstand: I devoured a long chain of novels this month. The most notable is After the Golden Age, by Carrie Vaughn. It's about the daughter of superhero parents who has no powers herself, but really it's about family and self-acceptance and power and all of that. Highly recommend.

Want to Read: I am getting closer to the end of the Luther biography. The problem is that I take it with me places to read and then lose it. Still. Oops.

TV Show Worth Watching: They're slowly coming back! Castle and Bones and Grimm and all the rest--and Once Upon a Time premiered last night. Squee! (Except the DDH has a meeting and I don't know if we'll be able to watch it tonight on Hulu. *cries*)

Movies I've Seen (in or out of a theater): We rented a new Jason Statham movie, Safe, last week. Basically, this movie was designed to show off Jason Statham doing stuff. He gets to drive cars crazily, shoot people, have Epic Fight Scenes, all the fun stuff, and the movie people just didn't worry too much about if the plot tying it together made any sense.

In My Ears: I'm miffed at Amazon. I pre-ordered the new Mumford & Sons album, Babel, expecting to get it, you know, right away, and it didn't get here until Saturday. So all week I had to listen to people going on about how good it is. But. You know, they were right. The weird thing about Mumford & Sons is that I often don't even like their songs the first time I listen to them. But then I hear them again, and then listen again, and suddenly those songs have wormed their way into the very core of my heart. So good.

Links

Apparently I'm not the only one who has noticed that intArwebz are full of outgoing introverts chattering away at each other. Tanya Marlow shares her theory.

While I find myself grumbling at stuff on Patheos more frequently than not, this piece speaks to my irritation with doom-and-gloomers of all sides of the political aisle. Dear Christian, if the Thought of Either Romney or Obama Getting Elected Makes You Fearful, Angry, or Depressed, You Have What We Call a Theological Problem.



I seem to have lost my list of other interesting tidbits I collected around the internets this month. I'll be back to edit if I find it.

What I'm looking forward to next month: It was foolish to look forward to fall weather cool enough for sweaters in September, and I failed to drink even one pumpkin spice latte (or pumpkin anything, actually). Perhaps October shall do better. So many things to look forward to this month: two weddings, the baby shower, finishing things up. The last full month before T-Rex arrives (assuming he doesn't arrive pretty early). Halloween! I need to think of something clever for my costume this year. HALP.

Goal Progress: I posted some goals for the new year, and I figured these monthly wrap-up posts would be a good chance to check my progress throughout 2012.

The Budget: We have one, and it's doing okay, even with spending extra on baby things and renovation supplies. Yay.

The Garden: I may or may not contemplate planting more garlic this month or next.

Food: I failed to make dinner even once this week. We had fast food Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and a volunteer appreciation dinner to attend on Thursday, and honestly I don't even remember eating on Friday. I don't know. I'm having issues with hating food again.

The Craft Room: Is still not quite done and labeled, but it's being used for crafts, so what more can you ask for? And the office will need to be at least mostly done in the next couple weeks, since we have four or five people staying at our house for the baby shower, and the office is turning into our second guest room (with the bunk beds). And the nursery! The floors are done. It's looking so good.

The leaves are hinting at change.

How was your September? What are you looking forward to in October?

I am busy (busy, dreadfully busy).

It's busy busy busy around here lately.

My best friend (since sixth grade, which is impossibly long ago. I mean, it was the nineties. Pretty much ancient history) is stopping in Tulsa on Saturday with her grandparents on the way home from a funeral, so we plan to meet up for dinner. It's not much of a visit, but it will be something. I haven't seen her in more than a year.

Tuesday evening my parents and baby brother will be rolling into town. The 'rents will head up to Michigan on Thursday and Misha will stay with us until we head up Friday evening. I haven't seen them since Misha's college graduation last May (2011, not last month), and rarely get to spend quality time with the bro anymore. How is it possible that that kid is twenty-four?

Friday is also our big ultrasound at the hospital. It will be fun to peek in on T-Rex again.

Then we're trekking on up to Michigan for a Dad's-side-of-the-family reunion and will be there about a week. I haven't seen my extended family since my wedding or even longer, and those who didn't make it to the wedding have never met the DDH. I don't really know my family that well, but still. It should be fun. Hiking and shooting and a day trip to Mackinac Island and all kinds of fun stuff (including a grandparents'-80th-birthday-celebration at a vineyard--NOT FAIR being pregnant).

I have a To Do list a mile long, but I enjoy checking things off lists, so that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Have a picture of a beagle curled up very small to break
the monotony of this long and rambling post.

My sister can't come to the reunion, so I'm sending her a thinking-of-you card and $10 to WalMart. Mostly because I remembered to send Misha said gift card for his birthday last week but did not remember to get Sasha anything for her birthday in February. So. I'm a terrible older sister.

I made the DDH a lovely little packing list for the trip, with things he should remember to bring that he always forgets (cell phone charger, toothpaste) and the itinerary so he can plan what he's wearing each day for different activities (my grandpa's a pastor at a fancy historic church in downtown Detroit, so he needs to dress a little more nicely than he does for our church, for instance).

Somehow the DDH just was not as excited about my neat little list as I was. Whatever. My own packing list is four times as long (I'm putting myself in charge of remembering things like a first aid kit and bugspray), with much more detailed daily outfit blanks. And there's a separate packing list for food. He ought to understand he got off easy.

I'm going to try to get some posts wrapped up this weekend so y'all will have something to read over the next couple weeks, but guess what? The intarwebz have mysteriously quit working at home.

When the DDH called the Cox guy, the guy said that he had called to complain about the internet not working exactly one year ago to the day. Mid-June, I don't know why you and the internets don't get along, but y'all need to sit down and work through your differences. You're messing with my plans.

Cox can't come out to look until Saturday evening, so it's not going to be fixed before then.

Hopefully you will understand if I just go silent for awhile. I might actually have to do work at work next week since I'll be gone for a whole week. Alas.

Here's another picture of a beagle as a reward for reading
this whole post.

I am looking back and forward (and have pictures of puppies).

I caught Jayne trying to dig a hole right next to the one we filled with the bag of cement sand yesterday. That said, they haven't successfully escaped in about a week now (knock on wood).

Also yesterday, Kaylee had another seizure. She'll go for months without one and I sort of forget she gets them, and then bam. Poor thing.

Also our neighbors got a new puppy.

So the dogs are keeping me busy.

***

There was a dog show in town over Memorial Day weekend, and this year's Tibetan Spaniel specialty was held here as well (a specialty is a show just for one breed of dog. For popular breeds, it can be a real prestige event; for less popular breeds like Tibbies, it's a great way to pick up majors toward a dog's championship).

Trail of Tibbies.

We primarily showed Rhodesian Ridgebacks in our dog-showing days, but my sister wanted a little fluffy dog and we ended up getting and showing a Tibbie. As with many things ostensibly purchased for my sister (such as the fish tank), I think Howard the Fluffrat* was really my mom's dog. He has since passed on, and she has replaced him with two girl fluffrats, Ruffles* and Apple*.

*Not their real names. I took an adolescent dislike to the small dogs, being a big-dog kind of gal and loyal to my Ridgies, and renamed Ch. Royal D's Kokopelli "Howard." Though they've grown on me, I insist on carrying on the tradition. Ruffles I think is really Ch. Royal D's Diamond in the Ruff and Apple is something something Queen Mab (different breeder, so not Royal D, and she's a pet so was never shown and is not "finished," so no Champion). There's a peculiar logic as to how I got Apple out of that (Ruffles is obvious and Howard just looked like a Howard), but I won't bother you with it here.

I think her name is Bailey.

ANYWAY, all this to say that Howard's breeder was in town for the specialty with Apple's littermate Bo and some bitch (above) that I'm sure is related to Howard or Ruffles in some way but I don't really know. Anyway, we stopped by to watch Sunday's Tibbie classes and say hi to Ruth and the Tiblets. The bitch is a pretty one (see above; adorable, right?) but didn't win anything that day; however she did pick up a major on Friday, which was the last one she needs for her Grand Champion title. She only needs one more point now to finish that and anyway this dog show talk is probably boring.

The point is: cute fluffies and a chat with a friend of the family.

***

This upcoming weekend we have a surprise sixtieth birthday party for a friend at church (when I was younger, I thought sixty was ancient. And it still sounds old, but it doesn't look old. I never guess that my friends who are sixtyish are that old, because in my mind sixty is still a doddering old lady) and my step-sister-in-law's wedding. Party party.

The story of my life at this moment is celebrations: birthdays, weddings, wins.

Or perhaps the better term is connections. The connections that bind me to the DDH's family and his step-father's family to his and my step-sister-in-law to her almost-husband's family. Ties that bind.

The connections we're finally forging at church, making friends as slowly as only a pair of shy introverts can.

The connections between my mom and her friend who is my old dog's breeder and between all the dogs and all the people that own and breed and love on the dogs.

The connections that are forming order out of chaos as I organize the craft room and clean and purge the rest of the house--connections made and connections severed.

The connections broken and reformed when the dogs leave and return. (And a seizure is a kind of leaving, as she becomes completely unaware of her surroundings during it, supposedly.)

Celebrating the connections. That's what I'm up to these days.

***

Some weekend reading for you:

Anne at Modern Mrs. Darcy recommended this post last week, and I'm still pondering it: Legos, Spaceships, Breasts by Kate Bachus. My thoughts might eventually be worthy of their own post, but in the meantime, I leave it for your consideration. Where are you on the boy/girl toy divide?

Speaking of marketing to children, Kathleen Quiring's post today on Children as Consumers and the Invention of the Toddler is interesting reading, as well.

And to go along with the marketing theme, the foodies among you might be interested in this book excerpt posted at The Atlantic, How Vegetable Oils Replaced Animal Fats in the American Diet, by Drew Ramsey and Tyler Graham.

***

What are your weekend plans? What connections are you celebrating right now?

Have you ever been to a dog show?

I am good enough.

Weekends. They're not always what you hope they'll be.

I often come off long weekends (so rare and far between, since we work a number of holidays when the stock exchange is closed) feeling disappointed. Like I've wasted it, somehow. They seem so rich and full of possibility at the beginning, and when I look back at the end, I never seem to have done as much as I wanted to.

No matter what I do, I'm nagged by that feeling of I-could've-done-it-better.

This happens in all aspects of life. It's why traffic drives me absolutely bonkers--because I have the sneaking suspiscion that if I were only good enough--smart enough, fast enough, clever enough, skilled enough, paying enough attention--I would be able to negotiate my way to smooth sailing.

If I were good enough, I'd always pick the shortest and fastest line at the grocery store.

If I were good enough, I'd pick the best route through traffic, the best lane for each segment of my drive.

If I were good enough, I would have a fresh meal on the table every night, my dogs would never run away, the DDH and I would never fight, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

But I can't be good enough to be any of those things.

Some things I can make active efforts to improve at--like meal planning and communicating kindly with the DDH--because improvement really does lie within my control. That's why I set goals and keep track of them.

But not meeting my goals doesn't mean I'm less of a good person than if I hit all my goals on schedule every time.

Some things I can try to account for--like filling in the dogs' holes with cement sand, or keeping an eye out for little old ladies writing checks at the grocery store, or checking a traffic report for construction--but are ultimately out of my control. I can't pave the entire backyard or cut off the dogs' digging paws or account for the stealth check-writers or sudden traffic accidents.

Except there is always something I could do. I could pave the backyard (or get rid of the dogs entirely, since they obviously don't want to live here anyway*). I could do all my grocery shopping online and end the tyranny of check-writers and price-checkers forever. I could refuse to leave the house (or at least refuse to drive) and thus never get stuck in traffic.

I'm stuck in frustrating situations because I choose to put myself there. Maybe that's where the feeling of not being good enough comes from, the acknowledgement that ultimately it is my choice (and thus my failure?) for being in the situation in the first place.

But when I look at the alternatives as being, not having chosen the shorter line, but having chosen to forego all grocery stores forever, I realize how ridiculous I'm being. I realize that beating yourself up over choosing the wrong lane of traffic is a silly way to live.

(The fact that if Tulsa's city planners had just done common sense things like include center turn lanes in their stupid roads, so many of my frustrations would evaporate, is another post entirely.)

I am good enough that a few extra minutes in line won't kill me.

I am good enough that I can be patient in traffic (and note to self: being impatient really could kill me).

I am good enough to set wise goals, to work on them, to fail and learn and try again and sometimes, to give up.

More importantly, I am not in any way and never will be good enough to control everything.

I'm not in control. I never was, and never will be, and figuring out the balance between personal agency (doing things) and personal subjecthood (having things happen to me) is, perhaps, the key struggle for this INTJ. They don't call us Masterminds for nothing.

I'm not in control. But I am good enough.

And for Pete's sake, it's time to stop raising my blood pressure over the dratted traffic four times a day.

The fewer cars, the better.

What makes you feel inadequate? And how do you remind yourself that frustrations are not personal failures or character flaws?

*Not really.

The seasons are turning. I am not.

I wish the seasons meant something to me anymore.

You know?

I wish summer still meant long, lazy days. Reading on the couch, collapsing under the swamp cooler, lining up my toy horses on the front porch. Running errands with my mom and siblings. A soundtrack of talk radio. Dinners on the back porch, talking into the night. Sibling sleepovers in the living room, in carefully constructed blanket tents and kitchen-chair beds.

That almost-endless span of nothing-to-do in which Everything could be accomplished.

With a super awesome birthday in there somewhere, my brother's a month earlier like the warm-up act for my own.

Dog days of summer.

Monsoons, that comforting pattern of sun and cloud and lightning and rain, cool/warm rain to quench the earth's thirst, and ours, for something to break the tyranny of the sun in the desert.

And then the thrill of school shopping, poring over schedules. Planning and dreaming and scheming to make everything about this year perfect. Notebooks and pencils and backpacks and pens. The change of pace, the comfort of routine.

Leaves in the fountain.

School begins in early August in New Mexico, so it always came before cooler weather. The crisp scent of fall didn't tickle our senses until midterms. And then, as it got colder, the excitement of Christmas: another break, another abandonment of now-stifling routine. Trees and lights and church. And presents--presents to request, presents to buy, presents to make, presents to wrap, presents to hunt for in the backs of closets.

The quiet, sated week between Christmas and New Years. The final party, welcome, new year! The return to school, docile with celebration hangover.

Lights in downtown Tulsa.

The hard slog of January, February, March to Easter break. Cold (though not wet like Tulsa, blech). Working day in and day out, routine to the extreme. Ordinary time. 

Spring Break, a much-needed respite. Warmer weather. Lilacs in bloom. The year's most pleasant walks to and from school (or are those in the fall?).

Backyard flowers.

The jittery excitement as summer approaches. A whirlwind of end-of-year activities, yearbooks and goodbyes, final concerts and awards presentations. Exams, later, and scores and grades that mean something. The frantic buildup and the sudden release, all of summer stretching before me in its hazy, fertile glory.

Now it seems like life consists of nothing but that January/February/March slog. The endless routine, always the same. Nothing changes. Nothing to anticipate. The same dreary work, the same evening routine of gym-chores-dinner-tv-bed. Weekends longed-for but wasted in more chores and commitments and an unfulfilling laziness that is only a cheap imitation of rest. The same bleary-eyed awakenings, begrudging the alarm.

Sometimes it's hot, sometimes it's cold. I'll wear sweaters and boots or tanks and sandals. But it's the same stuff I'm doing. No breaks. No vacations. No completion.

And maybe that's fine. There's nothing wrong with my routine, with the tasks that fill my days and weeks and months and years.

I just wish the seasons meant something again.

You know?

I am two.

Oh, hey there, blog. Almost forgot about you.

Life's been a little busy, and I've been a little tired.

And we're not ready to tell everyone (which means, no Facebook), but I'm trying to work through some things in my head so I'm going to tell you, my dear Internet friends (and Jessi, but please keep it quiet for now!):

Yup. Little Critter's ETA is mid-November. The same month as our anniversary. And as DDH's birthday. So that was good planning. -_-

Yay! So other than being terrified, we're very excited (even though I'm going to spend the rest of this point not sounding excited at all but worrying over related matters). But I guess my goals for the year have changed a bit now.

I need to:

1. Learn everything (or at least enough) about pregnancy, childbirth, and babies.
2. Make a nursery and otherwise babyproof the house.
3. Figure out how to babyproof the dogs (they're very loving and protective, but Jayne also sliced my toe open yesterday making a mad dash for his Kong. Soooo....).
4. Figure out how to tell my boss that I'm leaving the firm, hopefully while still being able to work up until the baby's born (the "hopefully" is not because I anticipate illness but because my boss is insane and might just fire me as soon as I tell him).
5. Figure out a way to make some money from home, and/or find a job of some sort to go back to next year.

A massive trip to the library and a judicious amount of googling are taking care of number one.

Number two will begin over the next few months. On a strict budget and with lots of gifty help from the parents...first grandchild FTW.

Number three...I'm guessing google will help me there, too. Though some people suggest using a doll and training the dog to behave around the doll, and that doesn't make sense to me. Dogs identify primarily through smell. A doll doesn't smell anything like a baby, and training a dog to be nice to a piece of plastic has nothing to do with it being nice to an actual person. Really I suspect this will just involve actually training the dumb dogs to behave better (finally! a reason for the DDH to cooperate and not sabotage all my efforts). And trimming their nails more frequently. And constant vigilance!

Numbers four and five, though...blech. For various reasons, starting with my boss is batshit crazy, going through no really, he's insane and ending with also I don't really like finance that much and I'm not that good at it, I do not plan on coming back to this job after Critter is born.

The fact that my salary would approximately equal the cost of good daycare enters into our consideration as well, and is part of the reason why I would prefer to manage to make some sort of money at home rather than by going to a part-time job somewhere. But the fact is, the DDH's ADA job will not quiiiiiitte pay all the bills. (Of course, trying to make payments on his ridiculous law school student loans is really what makes it impossible for us to get by on just his ADA salary...but anyway.)

I've worked as a tutor on the side before, and imagine I could pick up some more of those gigs--except that childcare will again be an issue (though not an insurmountable one, surely).

Here's the thing. Really, Critter just pushed up my deadline. I've been planning to quit my job for a while now, because I hate it. It's both boring and stressful and not particularly rewarding in any sense of the word--except for the sense in which it's reliable, regular income, which going out on my own with any sort of project is not.

But while what I love is writing, editing, cooking, and gardening (and I'm not particularly talented at the last two)...I have no idea how to turn that into any amount of money at all. And I'm getting depressed googling around for online editing gigs and only coming up with scams. Why don't legitimate people want a complete stranger to edit their important documents over the internet? I don't understand. ;-)

So I need some ideas. Is it too much to ask that I

1. Actually make some (not a lot! but some) money
2. Doing something that I actually enjoy
3. That lets me stay at least mostly at home with Critter and his/her eventual siblings, doing what I believe is the most important job of all?

It would be really nice if the DDH could just snag some swank private-sector lawyering gig with a private-sector lawyering income so that I wouldn't have to worry about making my writing projects profitable...but he promised the county four years and he's a man of his word. And he really, really loves his crazy insane stressful heartbreaking job, so I wouldn't be surprised if he wants to stay longer.

Sigh. It's something I need to work on regardless of whether Critter sticks it out (yes, I'm reading too many miscarriage stories on Babycenter), because as scary and uncertain and failure-ridden as doing something else is likely to be, I cannot subject myself to this place much longer.

Help, friends!

Reality Bites at Reality Chef

I know it's an internet phenomenon, to complain about how un-real our internet personas are.

I hear people complaining about it--how they get depressed because everyone's life seems better than theirs when seen through glowing status updates. I myself am prone to shameful raging fits of envy when I see other people's beautifully decorated houses (and then those people complain about them, ugh!), their seamlessly organized and totally fulfilling lives.

Exhibit A: This used to be the view from my bedroom window.
When I lived in Freiburg, Germany.

It seems to be all the blogosphere rage to insist you and your blog will "keep it real," that you're "all real," but all the while we post a carefully edited presentation of our lives. Even our troubles can be giftwrapped and prettied up to seem artfully tragic.

I hate that.

I mean, I am the Number One Fan of the curated personality presentation. I don't mind people presenting me the Best Bits version of their lives--that's more or less what I'm presenting you. I like a juicy secret and I like to know that your lives really aren't perfect, but people go to the internet for the same reason they go to the movies or watch television or read books: for entertainment.*

And mundanity is anything but entertaining.

That's why no one loves the friend who tweets every day's tiniest event: Woke up, had coffee. Heading off to work, blah. Think I'll get Chipotle for lunch. Stuck in traffic and found some spinach in my teeth.

Yawn.

Somewhere, though, there's a balance. There's a balance between the kind of real that tells you what time I brush my teeth every day (right before bed. Yeah, just once a day, don't tell my dentist) and the kind of editing that makes you think I eat nothing but free-range meat and homegrown produce cooked in my four-star kitchen (I wish) to exacting standards for my Hollister-model husband and my 2.5 kids.

Somewhere in there is the version of life that's entertaining without making you (too terribly) jealous. A version of life that's relateable. A version of life--of self--that is a friend.

I've got a series in mind for this little blog, but I'm starting with Reality Chef, because I named the damn thing with this whole concept in mind yet lately have been only posting recipes and meals that make me look good like a skinny-bitch Paula Deen with a smitten kitchen chaser.

Every day from now until Easter (so basically for Lent), I'm going to post what I had for dinner. Sometimes, and in keeping with my New Year's goals hopefully at least three times a week, this will be a recipe that you might want to try. But maybe more often than I'd like, it's going to be leftovers or fast food or whatever reality meal Americans eat these days.

I won't be posting all of these here, because that could be totally boring. I'll just link to the recipe ones the way I've been doing. But if you're curious, keep an eye on the food blog for a taste of reality. Hopefully, it will encourage you and show you that real food lifestyles are doable, without overwhelming you with the impossibility of living them perfectly.

'Cause heaven knows that I'm not perfect, and Day 1's dinner proves it.

*Ok, so that's drastically oversimplified. REALLY mostly people go to the internet to Google stuff on Wikipedia. Also for porn. And to nurture human relationships or buy stuff on Amazon or whatever. But entertainment is certainly a primary purpose. No, I'm not linking to porn with that link, geez, but to the Avenue Q song.

11 Things at 11:11 on the 11th.

By the time I hit "Publish" it won't be, but I would like to point out that RIGHT NOW it is 11:11 a.m. on the 11th. ^____^ (By the time I hit "Publish," it's not even the 11th anymore...oh well.)

I think the entirety of my online existence in middle school (and, honestly, most of high school) consisted of chain survey emails passed around between my girlfriends and me.

At some point I realized that other people didn't enjoy them as much as I did...and my innate shyness means that I cannot do anything that might possibly irritate, offend, or cause someone to think less of me. So I stopped sending them.

But I love love love them. I am endlessly curious about other people's lives, and perhaps because I'm so shy and spend the entirety of my life crafting a persona I think others want to see in me, I spend a lot of time navel-gazing myself.

SO. Megan at SortaCrunchy tagged me in this little meme and I'm going to do it. SO THERE.

RULES

1. Post these rules.
2. You must post 11 random things about yourself.
3. Answer the questions set for you in the post of the person who tagged you.
4. Create 11 new questions for the people you tag to answer.
5. Go to the blogs of the people you've tagged and tell them that you’ve tagged them.
6. No stuff in the tagging section about you are tagged if you are reading this. You legitimately have to tag 11 people.

11 RANDOM THINGS

1. I own or have owned a variety of dogs, rabbits, fish, and rats, but I have always wanted and never owned a guinea pig.
2. I showed dogs for five years or so when I was younger (elementary and middle school).
3. Monkeys creep me out to the point of terrifying me. Ugh.
4. I have lived in five states and two countries. Technically, I'm a Yankee by birth, but I'm a Southwestern girl at heart.
5. I only shower about three times a week.
6. I am the oldest child of two oldest children.
7. I hate Jon Stewart. He's a pompous, unfunny jerkface and I have no idea why he's so popular. (I also don't get The Office. Obviously my sense of humor is broken.)
8. One of my husband's and my old college friends is currently living in one of our spare bedrooms.
9. I don't like olives, bell peppers, or pepperoni.
10. I eat hamburgers and other sandwiches in circles around the outside edge. The middle bite, where there's a bit of everything (meat, veggies, sauce) is the tastiest and I save it for last. 
11. I have an insatiable sweet tooth and the summer I spent nannying, I went through a 96 oz. bag of M&M's from Sam's Club every two weeks. By myself. I didn't gain any weight because I was spending ten hours a day literally running (and biking) around after two little boys, but amazingly once I stopped this habit, I lost thirty pounds.

QUESTIONS

 

1. Which season is your favorite and why? Fall. Harvest season! The weather is beautiful, there's an abundance of fresh produce, and I like coziness and pumpkin spice. I'm a fan of summer, too, though, and spring when it's finally warm after winter. Honestly, more than the season, I just love a clear sunny day, no matter the temperature. Rain and mud depress me.

2. What is the best deal you've ever gotten on anything? Hmm. When I was in middle school, my Destination Imagination team went thrifting for supplies for our skit. At one of the thrift stores, I found and for some reason fell in love with a stuffed armadillo. I don't remember what he cost; maybe a dollar? Little enough that my limited-income middle school self could snatch him up. Armee has accompanied me everywhere since: to dog shows, on road trips, to college, to Germany. He lives in the bottom drawer of my bedside table and even now if I'm feeling gloomy I pull him out and hug him and think of a sunshiny Albuquerque day and an adventure with friends and all the places we've been together.

3. What is your favorite dessert? Ice cream. Anything involving ice cream and/or chocolate.


4. When was the last time you went to the dentist? Just a few weeks ago, actually. No cavities!

5. Do you prefer older homes or new construction? Older homes (though updated plumbing and electricity would be nice). They just seem more solid, somehow. Built to last. And I love love love hardwood over carpet or tile any time. Our house has hardwood that some idiot covered in hideous Berber carpet, and it is one of our fondest dreams to rip it up and refinish the floors beneath. But bringing the electrical system up to code and replacing the disintegrating cardboard sewage pipes should probably come first....

6. What is your favorite social media platform and why? (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Reddit, etc) Facebook 'cause my mommy's on it. Ha. No, Facebook seems the most suited for actual personal interaction with family and friends that I don't see every day (or ever), as well as for just sharing those interesting tidbits I find on the web. Though I just started on Pinterest yesterday and it's proving useful so far.


7. Photography: do it yourself or go to a professional? I haven't had a professional portrait taken since my senior pictures for high school. I guess except my wedding pics, which aren't very good. I am a prolific but mediocre picture-taker and would really like some nice, artsy photos of me, the DDH, and perhaps the pets. But, you know, money.


8. What is the last thing you made? Yesterday I made two tortilla pies, beef stew, and some granola bars. Today I made guacamole. I make a lot of food. What was the last non-food thing I made, though? I'm not even sure.

9. Thrifting: love it or hate it? I want to love thrifting. That is, I want to have all these cute vintage clothes for very little money. But I have not found a good place to go in Tulsa and/or I'm just not very good at it. I have difficulty seeing the possibilities of a garment and I never seem to find any treasures (except Armee the Armadillo, of course).

10. Sunrise or sunset? Fiddler on the Roof. ^_^ Sunrise. There's something special about being up and outside at that time of day.


11. What is your guilty pleasure? Long, hot showers, since I am a water Grinch in the rest of my life (desert girl, you know). Also, trashy novels.

I'm not tagging anyone because the only people I know who read me are Megan (who tagged me), Anne (whom Megan tagged), and Sarah, who has an itty bitty baby and negative amounts of spare time. I guess technically I'm tagging you, Sarah, but you can just answer Megan's questions. And, contrary to the rules, anyone else is welcome to play, too.

Yay weekends and middle school flashbacks!

I am shy.

If you've been wandering around the IntArwebz lately, you've probably noticed a quiet little hubbub going on about introversion.

Susan Cain has released a book called Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking. Adam McHugh has a blog and a book on introverts in the church.

I haven't read either book, though I do read McHugh's blog. He has a lot of good things to say, and from the interviews with Cain and the reviews of her books that I've read, she does as well.

(I will admit that I think the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod is a more introverted denomination than the traditions McHugh comes from, so sometimes his stuff confuses me. I just don't get that "extroverts are better" vibe at my own church.)

With all this publicity surrounding introversion, however, the same comment keeps cropping up. Take this statement from an interview with Cain on NPR:

"Now, shyness, on the other hand, is about a fear of negative social judgment. So you can be introverted without having that particular fear at all, and you can be shy but also be an extrovert."

Only recently have I come to realize that shyness and introversion are truly different things.

And that, moreover, I am both introverted and shy.

Apparently the heart-clenching paralysis I feel when facing human interaction--whether it's calling to make a doctor's appointment or going to a party--is not introversion.

Apparently, being around people can make you tired without you being terrified of being around people.

The problem with all of this introvert publicity--and let me say that I don't think it's a bad thing, that Cain and McHugh have important messages that they convey articulately--is that, while it normalizes introversion, it has made me acutely aware of how abnormal shyness is.

That is, so often people, as Cain does in the interview excerpt above, leap to say, "Introversion is okay; it's normal and wonderful and just different from extraversion. It's not, heaven forbid, shyness."

And while I know that's not the message they're intending to convey (I don't think)...it sure makes me feel miserable.

It just emphasizes that other people aren't like me. Other people can call up a dentist and make an appointment without agonizing over the process for weeks--and they can cancel a subsequent appointment because they don't like the dentist, instead of continuing to go because she's so afraid of having the dentist and his employees dislike her.

Other people can take clothes in to a consignment shop and get money for them instead of sheepishly dumping them in the donation bin, all the while freaking out about the people driving by who obviously are judging her.

Other people can speak in class when not called on and meet friends' eyes when speaking to them.

(Other people have Real Life friends.)

Sigh. This sounds mopey and self-pitying. To a degree, that's because it is. But to a degree, it's not.

If it's not normal, maybe it's something I can change. If it's not normal, maybe it's something I can overcome.

Probably not. Not completely, anyway. But maybe if I do some of these common tasks often enough, reminding myself that other people don't panic about them because there's no reason to panic, maybe, eventually, I'll stop panicking.

Or maybe I'll die of a heart attack before I'm thirty. Either way.

I am a bookworm.

I would like to announce that I have memorized my library card number. It is only shallowly memorized; I could not recite it without a pause or type it without a number pad. But I am getting there. Victory.

I still have the number from my childhood card memorized, for I had truly and completely internalized it. 29075010876189, if you are curious.

How many hours did I spend in that little library on Juan Tabo? Too many to count. Browsing book by book through the juvenile paperback section. Searching for sequels on the fancy new computer catalogs with their black screens and blocky green letters (I am of an age where I had to learn how to use a card catalog in school but have never actually used one). Methodically checking out every book available by a new favorite author. Daring to wander the aisles of the adult side of the library. Listening to the whirring clunk sound of the self-checkout machines. Triumphantly collecting every. single. summer reading prize available by reading more books each week than most of the children read all year.

I was so proud to be able to do all of that myself. Mom would go off to the adult side of the library looking for her books and my siblings and I would scavenge the youth/children's side. We'd claim our cards from her wallet and place books on hold all by ourselves, on our own personal accounts, on those creaky old computers. Eventually, I didn't even need the card--that awesome power, the Library Hold, was available to me based only on information I had memorized in my own head. Oh, I felt like a Professional Reader, my friends. I was the Best Library Patron Ever.

Now I almost never spend more than two minutes inside my local library branch. I log in online, request books on my reading list, and stop by to pick them up when I get the email that says they've arrived.

Admittedly, the entire building for the library in my neighborhood, including the bathrooms and the ginormous conference room, is barely half the size of the library we frequented in Albuquerque. There's not much there to browse, and it's always crowded with, well, children, who I would like to think are as excited about the World of Books as I was but who really are arguing loudly over computer time and blocked websites and listening to music with the volume turned up so high I can hear it despite the giant padded headphones they're all wearing.

But here I am again, twenty-five years old and just as excited that I've memorized my library card number. I'm just as excited about that World of Books, that world of entertainment and knowledge and Story that once again stands open before me, unlocked by this information in my head.

I am tired.

I am tired. So very tired. I get seven to eight hours of sleep every night, yet somehow each morning I can barely drag myself out of bed, I wander through the day in a haze, I fall asleep on the couch after dinner. Ugh. I blame winter, a lack of sunshine, too many sweets, and a pervasive depressive malaise that no amount of Christmas lights seems to dispel.

I can't do much about the winter or the lack of sunshine. Obviously I need to eat better rather than just munching on Christmas noshes, but it's a vicious cycle, isn't it? How do I get the energy to cook something healthy when my brain's too foggy to plan properly and there's an exhaustion in my gut that feels like the rods holding me upright have snapped?

I don't know if that visual makes any sense but it's how I feel. Hollow in the gut; surprised to still be standing or sitting upright.

Just in general I haven't been able to marshal my thoughts long enough to plan anything out or get anything done. My to-do lists aren't getting done because I don't have any to-do lists. Weird.

I need to sit down and make lists and plans of attack and goals and generally get my life in order, but I just don't want to do anything and I don't have the energy to do anything except sit in front of my computer at work and cringe every time someone walks by in case they want me to do something or notice that I haven't really been doing anything. I just barely have enough energy to drive home without letting my car crash into the highway walls and stumble up to my bed or the couch and just lie there, staring at nothing.

I have made approximately three million (well, maybe more like ten) trips to Target (and other stores, but mostly Target) within the last five days because every. time. I go. I forget something I needed to get. I stand in the middle of the aisles for fifteen minutes chasing down my scattered thoughts, trying to make mental checklists I can check off, asking myself if there's anything else I need so I don't need to come back during the craziness that is the week before Christmas...every time I conclude there's nothing else, or I think of one or two things and I grab those...and every time two hours later I realize, oh, I need that and I didn't get it.

Sigh. And it's that vicious cycle thing, not having energy to get stuff done or eat well leads to having less energy because I've been eating junk or being demotivated because nothing's been done. I just see all the decisions that need to be made (to I go to the pet store or the post office today? do I get the brother a WalMart or Target gift card or something else? do I get this Christmas stationery or that one or just some cards?), all these countless little not-really-that-important decisions--and I just refuse to make them. I go and hide on the couch and stare at the tree with it's pretty lights and shiny ornaments and refuse to decide anything.

Things have been done. I've written some pompous little antiphon blog post things. I cleaned the kitchen table and counter and actually am keeping up with the dirty dishes etc. I cleaned off the coffee table last night. I cooked and ate some Swiss chard. I got the dogs' picture taken with Santa. I've gotten and wrapped gifts for parties and made snacks for parties and attended parties.

But I haven't mailed packages to my parents, siblings, and friends. I haven't written or mailed a Christmas letter or Christmas cards or Christmas anythings. I haven't cleaned out the bunny's cage because I haven't gone to the pet store to buy more litter. I haven't made presents for the office (granola, I was thinking granola). I haven't wrapped the DDH's gifts or our roommate's gifts or the in-laws' gifts or or or.

And the thing is I'm not stressed about it, because I don't have the energy to care. And you don't stress about things you don't care about.

I am really confused by the new Facebook.

I don't really care about the little sidebar that pops up with irrelevant about your friends. Whatever. It's off in a corner and I pay zero attention to it.

I don't really care about the various cosmetic changes to the page. Whatever. Everyone will get used to a new design.

But I do not like being able to tell if I'm seeing all the updates I want to see. I NEED TO KNOW EVERYTHING, GUYS. WHY AREN'T YOU SHOWING ME EVERYTHING.

I mean, I clicked to subscribe to all of my mom's posts...but some of them show up at the top of the page and some show up at a random lower part of the page and some, I suspect, don't show up at all.

So for the moment I've given up on using the thing. My Farm stands abandoned because I can't see if I'm getting all the watering cans or whatever my mom and her friends are posting. I haven't read a political blog post linked by dad in days, because I can't freaking find them. I have no idea what is going on in anyone's life.  SIGH.

Facebook was a nice orderly way for this introvert to feel like she knew people and was interacting with them. Until I figure out the new system and make sure I'm getting all the knowledge I want, I am completely cut off from the world.

Yeah. I know.