Happy Halloween from Sarah Jane Smith, (the fourth) Doctor Who, and the TARDIS!
Category Archives: personal
Photoblogging: Warmer Days
Now that bona-fide cold weather has moved in, I will cling to the memory of warm days spent in the park with my two favorite people (photo taken 9/16/12).
Filed under coraline, personal, photoblogging, photography
Sucktoberfest
Song Lyric of the Day:
I think I found something / I think I found something in my TV screen / I think I found out, that I have nothing / That I have nothing in this place for me
The Neighbourhood / “Female Robbery”
I’ve never really looked forward to the end of a month before, but now that the end of October is in sight, I’m thisclose to breathing a sigh of relief. Because it has been a very stressful month, to say the least. (Heads up: This is going to be a long post.)
The downward spiral, as it were, started on Monday, October 1. Midday, a coworker came to tell me Rich was laying down on a couch and thought he had food poisoning and wanted me to take him home. We packed up our stuff, and I finished out my workday from one of the upstairs couches while Rich slept fitfully on the other couch. Around 5:30PM, he asked me to take him to the hospital since he felt worse. I called Mom to let her know what was going on so she’d know why we weren’t on our way to pick up Coraline. Hours later, we got the diagnosis of kidney stones and I left to pick up Coraline while Rich and I tried finding someone to bring him home; our neighbor ended up saving the day.
That Thursday I started a week of house- and pet-sitting for my parents, so I was going back and forth between our houses a lot (Mom and Dad have diabetic kitties who need insulin shots twice a day). The following Monday Rich ended up getting blasted by lasers to break up the larger (5mm) of the two kidney stones. Thankfully, his mom was able to bring him home from the hospital so I could continue working and watching Coraline.
Wednesday morning rolled around and when I got home from Mom’s house to help Rich get Coraline ready for daycare and then carpool to work, I noticed that our dog Happy couldn’t raise her head to say hi to me. Rich then told me how he hadn’t been able to get her to eat or drink the night before and that he’d found her collapsed in the grass during the dogs’ bedtime walk. Happy had been in decline for a few weeks by this point, and even though she had rallied a bit, I still didn’t want to admit this might be the end. We came home from work at lunchtime, and when I walked In the living room, Happy was so unresponsive I at first thought she had died. I started crying (again after a morning cry) and asked Rich to please call the vet. We dropped her off at the vet on our way back to work; we were scared she would hurt herself without us around. We arranged to come back at 4PM to be with her and say goodbye, and Rich called his parents to let them know (we rehomed Happy from Rich’s parents). Back at work the time remaining until 4PM seemed interminable, with me making numerous trips to the bathroom to cry. By the time we got to the vet, Rich’s parents had been with Happy for an hour, so I was grateful they had some time together. Rich, his parents, and I were all with Happy when the time came to say goodbye. It broke my heart when we brought Coraline home from daycare and she immediately pointed to the dog beds and said, “Happy. Where’s Happy?” I said, “Happy’s not here anymore. She’s in heaven now.” Then I rushed to the bathroom to cry while Rich attended to Coraline. That turned out to be the tip of the iceberg as far as how Coraline has noticed and been affected by Happy’s passing.
The next day I picked up Coraline from daycare and took her to wrap things up at my parents’ house; my sister was picking them up from the airport later that night. Everything was going fine until Coraline started down the stairs just ahead of me, after I told her to wait for me. I think I had three simultaneous heart attacks as I watched her fall down the stairs (about eight steps, I believe). The only saving grace was that she rolled down perfectly parallel to the stairs and did NOT hit her head, even on landing on the floor at the bottom. I called a triage nurse immediately to find out if I needed to take Coraline to the ER; all I kept thinking about was Natasha Richardson and her seemingly innocuous bump on the head. After several minutes of me answering the nurse’s questions, she advised me on what to watch out for so I would know if/when to rush Coraline to the hospital. If she’d hit her head, I would’ve taken her to the hospital straightaway, but (THANK GOD), she didn’t hit her head. She didn’t even end up with any bruises. Someone was watching out for her that night. I knew she was going to be OK when she said, “I fall down stairs,” a couple of times, followed by her asking to finish eating her chicken nuggets. Once we got home, as Coraline was jumping up and down on our bed, I told Rich what had happened. Needless to say, he doubted my story a bit as Coraline was hopping around like a nut.
The next few days were blessedly uneventful until Mom called me at work Tuesday morning to tell me she’d fallen down a couple of steps and had hit her head. I ran and told my boss why I had to leave, picked up Mom and my nephew, who she was watching, and rushed to the hospital. I spent the next few hours waiting to hear that Mom was OK (her CAT scan came back clean, thank God) and sending texts and returning calls to keep our family apprised of what was going on. Turns out Mom also had someone watching out for her.
Oh, and there was also a shakeup at work that led to my friend/coworker’s departure. And Rich and I also received some news that has helped send our stress levels skyrocketing. Because we weren’t already at all stressed this month.
I know things could have been a LOT worse this month, particularly with regard to Rich’s health and Coraline’s and Mom’s falls. But with my life turning into fodder for a country music song in the span of a few days, it was definitely bad enough.
So that’s why I can’t wait for this month to be over. I sure as hell hope your October has been better than mine.
Filed under personal
Photoblogging: My Birthday, My Little Girl
Even though I took today off from work for my birthday, the best part of my day was the time I spent with my sweet little girl. (The time spent with my special guy wasn't too shabby, either.)
Filed under coraline, personal, photoblogging
Quiet Reflection
Song Lyric of the Day:
All these kinds of places / Make it seem like it’s been ages / Tommorrow some new building will scrape the sky / I love this country dearly / I can feel the ladder clearly / But I never thought I’d be alone to try
Last year on the anniversary, I poured my guts out about where I was that day and the emotional fallout for me. Today I’ve kept mostly to myself, both online and offline, largely in part due to a stomach bug (or food poisoning) that has me feeling pretty rough. But also because — particularly after last year’s post — I think I’ve shared all I’m able to share about how that day affected me.
Instead, today I kept foremost in my thoughts the emergency/first responders lost that day, the service men and women we’ve lost due to that day, and the first responders still dealing with health issues from the fallout.
I also thought a lot about Adam and Ryan, and their families and friends. Based on the search terms for my blog today, many other people were thinking about them, too.
You can learn a bit more about Adam here and here. And you can learn more about Ryan here and check out his widow, Heather’s, book about Ryan here.
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
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?
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.
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.
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.
Filed under personal
Wild Toddlers Can’t Be Broken
Song Lyric of the Day:
Five little monkeys jumping on the bed / One fell off and bumped his head /So Momma called the doctor and the doctor said /No more monkeys jumping on the bed!
“Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed” (book by Eileen Christelow)
Last weekend Rich, Coraline, and I were enjoying the wilds of Asheville, N.C. — particularly the wilds of Biltmore. We enjoyed a stay at the historic Firestone house, which Rich found on Airbnb, which was great. Not only was the house in a terrific location with a wonderful host, but the fact that we were in a home environment versus a cramped, impersonal hotel room was really helpful for Coraline. Unlike our trip to Iowa last summer, she didn’t have to sleep in a hotel’s metal prison-on-wheels crib or her pack ‘n’ play. This trip she got to sleep in a big bed like a big girl.
The first night she slept by herself in the twin bed. Of course, I had to lay down with her until she fell asleep, which ended up taking over an hour. She’d only ever slept in a bassinet, pack ‘n’ play, or crib until this trip, so she needed some reassurance. (So did Rich and I — we placed every extra pillow on the floor next to her, just in case.) Our second night there, Rich took the twin bed while Coraline slept in the full-sized bed with me; she fell asleep in under an hour, passed out with her head on my shoulder. The last night, Rich and I switched and Coraline fell asleep even quicker than the night before.
Turns out Coraline is quite the little bed hog (7/6/12)
Once we got home last Sunday and Coraline went from a vacation non-routine and 24/7 mommy and poppa time (that included all of us sleeping in the same room together) back to her normal schedule and sleeping alone in her crib in her room, well, it didn’t go over so well. No sooner had I placed her in her crib than she was standing up and screaming “mommmmeeeee” over and over, something she never does at bedtime. She normally flips over onto her stomach, pops her thumb in her mouth, and goes right to sleep. I went downstairs where I told Rich how upset she was and turned on the video monitor, which showed Coraline still standing and screaming. Within a couple of minutes we heard a loud bang, Coraline scream, and Caleb bark. I looked at the video monitor and didn’t see Coraline in her crib; I was pretty sure she wasn’t in one of the corners we can’t see. I told Rich I thought she’d fallen out of her crib.
Where's Coraline? (I took this pic back in March when Coraline started squirreling books in her crib.)
We raced upstairs to her room, and no sooner had I opened her door than I spotted her standing on the floor next to her chair. She held out her arms and screamed “MOMMA!” as I snatched her up. Rich and I checked her over to make sure she hadn’t hurt herself; she fell directly onto the hardwood floor, so we were worried about broken limbs and a possible head injury. Thankfully, she was OK. No physical injuries, just scared out of her wits — proof that toddlers are made of rubber and Adamantium. After Rich helped calm her down, I read a few more books to her. While we were reading, Rich brought a mattress pad in and laid it on the floor in front of her crib, just in case. A little while later, I turned off the light and put Coraline back in her crib. This time she rolled over onto her stomach, popped her thumb in her mouth, and went right to sleep.
That was the first — and so far only — time Coraline has ever gotten out of her crib. We think she scared herself so badly that she doesn’t want to try it again. She also scared us so badly that we now have her crib toddler-bed conversion kit in the hallway on standby.
It's a long way down from that crib.
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.
