Tag Archives: personal

September 5, 2012 · 11:48 PM

When It’s Time to Stop Reading

Song Lyric of the Day:

I hear you laughing at me when I’m up / I see you when you’re crying for me when I’m down / I see you when you laugh at me when I’m up / I see you when you’re crying for me / All you do to me is talk, talk

Talk Talk / “Talk Talk“

Lately I’ve noticed that while I’ve been reading some of the blogs I’ve read for years, I haven’t been enjoying them like I used to. I originally started reading these particular blogs because they were funny, insightful, poignant, entertaining, and, most importantly to me, relatable. But lately something’s changed –in place of those great, well-written posts I used to enjoy there’s filler. Granted, I think most of us bloggers have occasionally used filler posts just to throw something up there (I’m raising my hand — guilty as charged). But most of us don’t have the type of readership and communities — or, in those rare cases, livelihood — tied to our blogs that these blogs in question do. I know I have a loyal little core of about 30 readers (see what I did there? I subtracted a few). So what’s changed? The majority of posts I’m reading are complete one-eighties from what the blogs used to be about; where one blogger was known for, say, baking, suddenly they’re posting about homing pigeons. I’ve lost my connection to them, that relatability that drew me to them in the first place and kept me a loyal reader for many years. Which is why I’ve come to the realization that I’ve been hate-reading them. (Somewhere my husband just said, “Well, duh.”)

In all honesty, I’ve never been so enamored of any blogger that I idealized them, put them on a pedestal, whatever.  But I did really, truly enjoy their writing for many years. These days? I find that more often than not their posts are about nothing — and not in that funny, clever Seinfeld about-nothing way. Just about nothing, as if they’re going through the motions. Granted, some of them (but not all) have pretty big life issues they’re dealing with these days, but when you’ve made a living/created your blog brand, as it were, based on your brutal honesty and outspokeness and willingness to share personal things, well … it’s quite an adjustment when you clam up and instead post a picture of a homing pigeon. I know there’s plenty of other stuff they could be writing about that would entertain/satisfy their readers (myself included) that wouldn’t even have to touch on subjects they’d rather not be blogging about at this time. And the ones who are closing/deleting/altering comments just because they don’t like dissenting opinions? So much for encouraging honest feedback.

But it’s not up to me to dictate what anyone else can do, you know? Except for Coraline — I’m bossing that kid around until the day I die. Will she listen? Well, that remains to be seen. I do expect some pushback, though.

So what’s my solution to my hate-reading problem? I’m going to stop reading those blogs, cold-turkey. That’s the goal, anyway; after years of lunchtime reading, it’s going to be a hard habit to break. It is going to be an adjustment, though, since I really did enjoy the stories and glimpses into their lives that these bloggers shared over the years. But all good things have to come to an end, right?

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September 4, 2012 · 8:00 AM

Life Offline

Song Lyric of the Day:

And my heart beats faster than safe / Faster than the train in my mind / And I’m not / But I try to find out / What to do with my life

The Shout Out Louds / “A Track and a Train“

Wow — I didn’t realize a month has passed since my last update. Not blogging was a mostly conscious decision, though (as in I would have liked to update here and there but time/the desire escaped me). I felt like I needed to just step back and enjoy living my life instead of trying to document and share online what I was up to. (Hence my decreased Facebook activity, too.) Although, in all honesty, blogging helps me remember a lot of things as my memory is just horrible. My short-term memory, to be exact — I can’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday, but I remember phone numbers from 20 years ago without any problem. Weird, huh?

I’m aiming to update on the more interesting stuff that’s happened recently as time allows — my class reunion (very belatedly, but at least it will satisfy Miss A’s curiosity. Hi, Miss A!); a long-overdue visit with my aunt and uncle from New York; our trip to Asheville, including an accidental two-day Biltmore visit; and our visit to Hampton Roads, from which we just returned on Saturday. And let me just say — two days of doing nothing after eight days of doing everything, and Rich, Coraline, and I are exhausted. I took a three-and-a-half-hour nap on Sunday. Three-and-a-half hours! Our first day back at work today (and day care for Coraline) is going to be a long one. Fueled by copious amounts of caffeine (and juice for Coraline), no doubt.

Another reason I’ve stepped back from my online life is that I’ve been working on a massive photo archiving project, which has necessarily taken up a lot of my free time  most evenings. I know I take too many photographs: I was down to less than 1MB of space on my MacBook (which has 80GB of storage) due to said photos. So I’ve been backing up photos from my laptop to a 500GB external hard drive I bought specifically for photo storage only. I’m up to a whopping 12GB of free space now. Even my iPhone was too full — I could only get maybe three apps to open because I had too many photos saved. Photos I couldn’t upload into iPhoto because I didn’t have enough free space on my laptop. It’s a vicious cycle. And yes, I wanted to be a photographer when I grew up. Hence my compulsive need to photograph everything.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

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July 18, 2012 · 8:30 AM

The Family That Ails Together: It’s Snot for Everybody

Song Lyric of the Day:

Once you get the feeling it / Wants you back for more / Says it’s gonna heal it but / You won’t make the call / One step back you’re leaving it

Bombay Bicycle Club / “Shuffle“

It has not been a lot of fun around our house of late. First Coraline got diagnosed with a double ear infection, then Rich got sick, then I got sick, and we’ve all been sick since. I think I’m on day eight or nine of this sinus infection/bacterial infection. It’s been an utter delight, not being able to breathe through my nose, coughing so hard my chest hurts, feeling so run down I get exhausted just thinking about doing stuff (forget actually doing it), and the phlegm. Oh dear God in heaven, the phlegm. The good people at Kleenex should be sending me thank you notes at this point for driving their stock up because it turns out my sinuses are the respiratory equivalent of a bottomless pit of snot.

I was put on an antibiotic, Cefdinir, on Friday. Even though I started it immediately, I kept getting sicker and sicker over the weekend. I ended up taking half a sick day from work Monday I felt so bad. Yesterday morning I called my doc again and he called in a Z-pack for me, so I’m hoping I start improving over the next couple of days. Rich got put on it first thing when he went to the doctor on Monday.

And Coraline, my poor baby, developed such a horrible, painful-sounding cough over the weekend that I took her to the doctor on Monday, a day early, for her already-scheduled ear recheck. It turned out to be the worst office visit with her so far. Not only are both her ears still infected and she almost certainly has allergies, but her lungs sounded rattly enough that her doctor ordered a chest X-ray to rule out pneumonia. I had to help a nurse hold Coraline still while she screamed her lungs out as they took X-rays as quickly as possible, with her crying and saying “mama, mama” over and over; it was horrible to see, let alone have to contribute to her misery. Then another nurse had to help me forcibly hold Coraline still so she could get a breathing treatment — she kept trying to knock off the mask. Coraline fought so hard and cried so much that I almost started crying. We don’t know why, but Coraline is now terrified of the nebulizer, which has made it next to impossible to give her breathing treatments at home. Her doc wants us to give her four treatments a day; we’re lucky to manage three. I think it’d be easier to give a cat an enema than it is to get Coraline to just breathe in that medicated mist.

Too Many Prescriptions

Coraline got four prescriptions yesterday: a steroid, an antibiotic, a nasal spray, and Singulair. We already had the Xoponex.

The worst part of all of us being sick the last few days is that we’ve missed out on seeing my aunt, uncle, and cousin from New York who are renting a cabin in the mountains nearby; I last saw my aunt and uncle in 2006, while my cousin and I last saw each other when we still lived in Houston (so circa 1985, 1986). I also only got to see my sister, who was in town this weekend, for all of three minutes on Monday when she dropped something off at our house; we didn’t even get to see Elliott and Miranda this time around. So being sick these last several days has really, really sucked. The only upside to me being house-bound has been catching up on season one of Once Upon a Time (only 10 more episodes to go!).

This Z-pack better work its magic but fast. I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. And I haven’t bought any Kleenex shares yet.

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June 22, 2012 · 2:28 PM

Tonight, We Are Young

Song Lyric of the Day:

But our friends are back / So let’s raise a toast / ‘Cause I found someone to carry me home / Tonight / We are young / So let’s the set the world on fire / We can burn brighter than the sun

Fun. / “We Are Young“

Tonight is my (and Rich’s) high school reunion. Our twentieth high school reunion. (Sh1t, we’re getting old.) As the four of you who have read this blog since the beginning know (hi, guys!), we didn’t make it to our tenth reunion. But we’ll be going to the informal gathering tonight, the family park get-together tomorrow afternoon, and the formal (official) event tomorrow night. The big question now is how many of our fellow graduates will make it. Out of a class of about 530, just over 300 of us are members of our class’/reunion Facebook page. And out of all of us, as of last week maybe 60 people had confirmed they were going. I’m hoping for a bigger turnout than that, but it’ll still be nice to see the people who do show up. The planning committee has done a great job, though, and outside of Facebook I can’t think of a faster or easier way for them to have spread the word about the reunion. Not to mention the work they’ve put into organizing events for this weekend. So kudos to them.

I’m a completely different person now than I was in high school; I imagine not a lot of people outside my close friends will even remember me. Which is fine, because I already know what story I’m going to tell people about how Rich and I got together. All I’ll say about that now is “mwahahahahahahahahaha!”

So here’s to a fun trip down memory lane this weekend. And for good measure, here’s the video for today’s Song Lyric of the Day. Appropriate for the occasion, I think.

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June 20, 2012 · 2:54 PM

I’m Just One Stomach Flu Away From My Goal Weight

Song Lyric of the Day:

I’ll be your keeper for life as your guardian I’ll be your warrior of care your first warden I’ll be your angel on call, I’ll be on demand The greatest honor of all, as your guardian
 
 

Last Wednesday night was my turn to put Coraline to bed. Rich and I alternate nights, so I was at the bat. Two books in (Coraline averages at least four or five), I noticed she was going a bit slack against my arm, like she was falling asleep. I know that when my sister S watched her one night, Coraline passed out halfway through a book after an exhausting evening playing with her cousin. She’d never done that with me before, but I enjoyed watching her sweet little face as she drifted off. Only she wasn’t falling asleep — she was going to be sick. No sooner had I smiled at her sleepy countenance than she opened her mouth and vomit hit me. All over. And I mean all over — I even got some in my bra.* Which is something that, as a parent, you expect might happen. But when it actually does happen? Oh dear God. I shifted her a bit, and she vomited again; my jeans were now soaked. I stood up to go holler for Rich, and — you guessed it — she got sick again. She threw up in the hall when I yelled down the stairs for Rich to come upstairs NOW. She threw up again in the hall bathroom when I sat her on the counter to start cleaning her up. We managed to get her stripped down to her diaper and set her in her playpen in the living room while we set about cleaning up her room (even her rocker and ottoman got drenched), the hallway, and the bathroom. Once we finished, Rich took over bedtime duties so I could go shower (I’m gonna wash that barf right outta my hair, I’m gonna wash that barf right outta my hair …). I now think of that night as The Night of 1,000 Vomits.

Fortunately, Coraline was perfectly fine by Thursday morning. Unfortunately, Rich and I were not. We both woke up horribly sick to our stomachs and ended up calling in sick to work. For me, the day went by in a horizontal haze since almost all I could manage to do was lay curled up in pain on the couch downstairs and whine about how horribly nauseated I was (worst nausea since my first trimester). We were both still sick Friday; Rich managed to drag himself into the office while I was still very weak and worked from home. It wasn’t until Sunday afternoon that I felt my stomach starting to return to normal. The only upside to having been that sick and eating next to nothing thanks to an all-but-dead appetite? I now weigh the least I’ve weighed since 10 days after giving birth to Coraline. But for those four nausea-filled days, even chicken soup turned my stomach. The faintest scent of any food made me want to hurl. Now the trick is to keep my workout momentum going so I can at least maintain my weight. I’d been wanting to shed a few pounds of late, but I didn’t want/expect to have a stomach bug do the work for me. 

And in case my blog post title didn’t give it away, I’m a huge fan of The Devil Wears Prada, which is where that Emily Blunt quote is from. Although I’ll stick to working out to drop a couple more pounds.

Now that we’ve all gotten over that stomach bug, we’ve hit the jackpot again in that Coraline was diagnosed yesterday with a double ear infection (it’s worse in the right ear) and I woke up sick with respiratory and sinus congestion this morning. Just in time for Rich to go out of town for business and our high school reunion this weekend. Let the fun begin! Again. Sigh.

*For you youngsters out there who needed an extra dose of birth control, you’re welcome.

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June 4, 2012 · 10:59 PM

Unfair

Song Lyric of the Day:

Words don’t come easily / When most I need them / I do not have a key / I am breaking in / There’s people / People going out of their mind / Right into each others’ arms

A Silent Film / “Driven By Their Beating Hearts“

Our weekend started out well enough. Fun family time, a movie with my sisters. Everything changed with a phone call from my mother-in-law late in the afternoon. In a panic, I listened as Rich’s voice rose, his mother’s crying audible from several feet away. I let Coraline continue happily watching Olivia even as I burst into tears when Rich repeated the news to me; I didn’t want her to get scared.

A young member of our extended family had died unexpectedly, on his 23rd birthday. I didn’t know him very well, but every time I saw him, he was so happy and so sweet and so fun to be around. I’m trying to process how someone I met when he was only 8 1/2 years old is gone. And his family … my God, I can’t even begin to imagine what his family, especially his parents and siblings are going through. Except that I can. I can imagine it. I’m a parent now, I have siblings.  And I start crying all over again for them, for their loss, for our whole family’s loss. Life can be so unfair. Right now it seems exceptionally cruel that these wonderful people, people who I love, who greeted me with open arms from day one, who have invited me into and hosted me in their home, are going through every parent’s worst nightmare. My heart breaks into another million pieces every time I think of what they and their other children are facing. And it’s all so very unfair.

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May 18, 2012 · 8:30 AM

31 Day Blog Prompt Challenge Day 18

Day 18: Something you are afraid of.

I’m not going to say what my biggest/worst fears are, because I’m an incredibly superstitious dork who fears that articulating those things out loud (or writing them out loud here on my blog) will make them come true. Ridiculous, I know, but that’s how superstitious I am.

So what’s something I’m afraid of? I actually went to Rich and asked him to name something I was afraid of. After a moment’s thought, his answer: “Success.” He is of course referring to my endless of supply of excuses for why I can’t find the time to write (vs. me making the time). Because if i write then someday I might get an agent and/or get published. It’s baggage like this that keeps therapists in business. I’d be a cash cow on this issue alone. And honestly, if books like this can get published and become best sellers, surely there’s hope for the rest of us, right?

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May 17, 2012 · 8:45 AM

Cabbage Patch Kids and Black Market Doll Adoptions

Song Lyric of the Day:

Cabbage Patch Kids / Growing in the garden / Cabbage Patch Kids / Growing in the sun

Cabbage Patch Kids commercial, circa mid-1980s

When I was a wee youngling, my mom bought me a Cabbage Patch doll. Mom went through hell to get her, practically having to elbow people in the store to get one for me. When I saw Isabel Sissy, I fell in love. The red ponytail braids, the yellow dress, the white lace-up shoes — it was all good. Isabel was soon joined by her baby sister, Fernanda Georgiana (I kept the names on their birth certificates), proudly purchased with birthday money received from my Abuela Tulita. Fernanda was obviously younger since she was bald as an egg, her chrome dome covered by a light purple bonnet that perfectly matched her two-piece ensemble. I eventually got a Cabbage Patch Koosa, kind of like a pet for the dolls, which I cleverly named Brownie ( you just typed/wrote a name on the label for its collar). I couldn’t have been happier.

Isabel Sissy and Fernanda Georgiana

Brownie

A large part of the appeal of Cabbage Patch Kids, as any doll parent worth their salt knows, was the adoption application papers and birth certificate that came with each doll. To finalize the adoption, you mailed in the application. A few weeks later and — voila! — you received the paperwork making it official. I giddily filled out the paperwork for both Isabel and Fernanda and gave it to my mom to mail off. I would listen with envy as my elementary school peers would talk about their finalized papers having arrived. Where were mine? What was taking so long? Had they gotten lost in the mail? I waited for years for those papers to be mailed back to me. Years. Once we moved from Houston to Knoxville, I knew the papers would never find me.

Last summer, I gave Coraline my beloved, albeit never officially adopted dolls. Like I had so many years before, she also instantly fell in love with them, although she prefers Fernanda over Isabel; I think the baldness equals “baby” to Coraline. She’s also quite fond of Brownie, even being careful to turn his head around to face front again when needed (it rotates all the way around).

With Grandpa Doug and Isabel

Kissing Fernanda

Kissing Brownie

After telling my mom how I gave my beloved dolls to Coraline, I mentioned how I had waited for so many years for adoption papers that never came. She said that was nice of me to give Coraline the dolls, and then, almost distractedly, added, “Oh, the papers? I never mailed them.” I’m sorry, but WHAT?!? YOU NEVER MAILED THEM?!? I waited YEARS for those papers! YEARS!!! I didn’t actually yell those things at Mom, but you can bet she got an earful. Mostly I went on about how for all these years I’d been harboring illegally adopted, black market Cabbage Patch dolls. See what not mailing in those adoption papers did? Created a shit-ton of baggage. Thanks, Ma!

Despite their questionable background, Coraline regularly dotes on Isabel and Fernanda, although they’ve almost been thrown to the wayside thanks to her obsession with her newest baby doll, cleverly named Baby (she has a bottle! That goes in her mouth!).

Putting Isabel and Fernanda to Bed

For her first Christmas, my mom gave Coraline this nifty talking, programmable dog named My Pal Violet. Violet spells out Coraline’s name, calls her Cora, and even lists her favorite animal, food, and color. Violet lives in Coraline’s crib and we hear her often when Coraline plays with her before falling asleep or on waking up. Violet even occasionally makes her way downstairs at Coraline’s behest. Violet had a printable adoption certificate.

Violet with her adoption certificate

Did I print and fill out Violet’s adoption certificate as soon as we opened her up? You bet your ass I did. That way I can hopefully guarantee that when Coraline is a happy, well-adjusted adult with a good career and a family of her own, she won’t be wasting her time complaining on the Internet about how her mother never took care of the damn adoption certificate.

Violet = legally adopted

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April 25, 2012 · 7:45 AM

The Strong Arms of the Ma

Song Lyric of the Day:

See the problem was I / Was fully consumed / With all of the petty things that I couldn’t do / All of the plastic products, shows and woes / I didn’t ever show, I let it go

Electric Guest / “This Head I Hold“

It’s been a while since I posted with any regularity. What happened? First, my beloved cat, my sweetest cat, Belle, passed away. The next day my mom had carpal tunnel surgery on her hand. Two days after that, Rich had shoulder surgery, making him our home’s official one-armed man. And since he was obviously temporarily incapacitated, that meant I had to pick up a lot of slack around the house. Rich could no longer help with Coraline’s bedtime ritual and overnight wakeups, gather and haul the trash to the curb, wash dishes, buy the big honking bags of dog food we buy, or help with unloading anything heavy out of the car, leaving yours truly to pick up the slack. (I tried teaching Coraline to poop on command so I could exact my vengeance as soon as Rich was able to change her diapers again, to no avail.) Make no bones about it, though — while Rich is right-handed and the surgery was on his right shoulder, he still managed to be helpful around the house, albeit on a limited scale.

Then — you knew there was a “then,” didn’t you? — my mom had her right knee replaced. Since one sister works at a bank across town, the other sister lives out of state, and our dad works in Oak Ridge, that left me as the best option to take Mom to physical rehab twice a week (Dad takes her the third time, on Fridays). (Here’s where I once again thank God and my lucky stars I work for such a wonderful company and, more importantly, such a wonderful boss.) My work schedule now consists of me working from home on Mondays and Fridays, the days Mom normally watched Coraline, and me working in the office Tuesday through Thursday, the days Coraline is at day care. Tuesdays and Wednesdays I leave work at 10AM to pick up Mom for rehab and — thanks to the wonderful magic of free Wi-Fi — work on my laptop the full hour she’s put through her paces. Then I drop her off at home and head back to the office, which works out — thanks to that hour of work at the rehab center, I’m still only taking an hour lunch (give or take a few minutes) via travel time.

Coraline visiting with Abuela (4/20/12). Coraline was in her "operator" mode, ready to call it a night.

So that’s what’s been going on the last few weeks. I can no longer keep track of what day it is, most days I would happily nap under my desk George Costanza-style, every time I sit down to watch TV upstairs I’m reminded Belle is gone, and I’ve been eating badly, to say the least, since I’m now on the go a lot more than before (damn American fast food for being so convenient and so, so awful).  And yet I’m grateful: Mom is already moving/walking better than she was before the surgery, Rich is just about back to being a full-time husband/father/errand boy (love you, honey!), I’m healthy, Coraline’s healthy — you get the picture. Things could be worse. So even though I’m so stressed right now I could probably turn a lump of coal into a diamond, I’m doing my damnedest to look at the bright side.

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April 12, 2012 · 9:58 PM

“Waiting for the End” — Linkin Park

Things have been pretty stressful of late, for reasons I’ll try to go into sometime in the  next few days. But as stressful as things have been for me, they’ve been so much worse for some people close to me, and I want them to know they are always in my thoughts and prayers.

As an avid Linkin Park fan, I’ve always loved their lyrics, and these last few weeks I’ve found myself listening to “Waiting for the End” over and over. I’ve read online where some people interpret this song as being about a soldier heading off to war or about a relationship ending. However, for me, its meaning is more about not letting pain, fear, doubt, and uncertainty take hold of you, about letting go of the bad in order to make room for the good. So it’s with that in mind that I hope these people close to me listen to this song — really listen to it — and embrace even a bit of what it’s about. Because these bad times will come to an end, for all of us. The stress, the uncertainty over which direction life is heading, the fear of what lies ahead, the second-guessing of every decision, the wait for opportunities that have yet to materialize — all of these things will come to an end. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Lyrics*:

[Mike:]
This is not the end, this is not the beginning / Just a voice like a riot rocking every revision / But you listen to the tone and the violent rhythm / And though the words sound steady something empty’s within them / We say yeah with fists flying up in the air / Like we’re holding onto something that’s invisible there / Cause we’re living at the mercy of the pain and the fear / Until we dead it, forget it, let it all disappear

[Chester:]
Waiting for the end to come / Wishing I had strength to stand / This is not what I had planned / It’s out of my control / Flying at the speed of light / Thoughts were spinning in my head / So many things were left unsaid / It’s hard to let you go

I know what it takes to move on / I know how it feels to lie /All I want to do / Is trade this life for something new / Holding on to what I haven’t got

Sitting in an empty room / Trying to forget the past / This was never meant to last / I wish it wasn’t so

I know what it takes to move on / I know how it feels to lie / All I want to do / Is trade this life for something new / Holding on to what I haven’t got

[Mike:]
What was left when that fire was gone / I thought it felt right but that right was wrong / All caught up in the eye of the storm / And trying to figure out what it’s like moving on / And I don’t even know what kind of things I said / My mouth kept moving and my mind went dead / So I’m picking up the pieces, now where to begin / The hardest part of ending is starting again

[Chester (till end):]
All I want to do / Is trade this life for something new / Holding on to what I haven’t got

[Mike:]
This is not the end, this is not the beginning / Just a voice like a riot rocking every revision (I’m holding on to what I haven’t got)

But you listen to the tone and the violent rhythm / Though the words sound steady something empty’s within them / We say yeah with fists flying up in the air / Like we’re holding onto something that’s invisible there (Holding on …) / Cause we’re living at the mercy of the pain and the fear / Until we dead it, forget it let it all disappear (… to what I haven’t got)

*I bolded some of the lyrics that really resonate with me.

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