Walking Backwards

I have a couple things to get off my chest. No life threatening or world altering secrets, but, you know, I do have an image to maintain after all and these little details are kind of embarrassing. That is why I'm airing them to the public, of course. I just would like to highlight my hypocrisy so that if you ever do encounter me and I sound a little to lofty to you, you can tell me to shove it. No one is without duplicity.

1) I like pop music.

I make fun of people who listen to FM radio and buy CDs off of the top 10 rack, but I listen to it myself. Well, some of it. Two songs I've been listening to:

Take Me Out

Feel Good, Inc.

2) One of my favorite things to do on the internet is update my Amazon wishlist.

Yeah, I know. I talk about minimalism and how I shouldn't be spending money on superfluous goods. I also talk about how I should be content with what I have, that I have more than I need, yadda, yadda, yadda. I just want all of this STUFF!


I'm sure there is more, but I need to think about it. It's hard to admit that you have something to hide.

It seems that we are now only a few hours away from the end of our four-day weekend. While Joe and I did very little, I can't say that it was entirely wasted. The sitting on the couch time was greatly appreciated and enjoyed by all. We put our Christmas tree up and put lights on it. No ornaments yet as our house is a three-ring circus most days, but I do like looking at the lights while sitting in our front room in the evenings, drinking hot chocolate or tea and reading my books. I'm finally entering the part of the holiday season I enjoy: getting to be with my family and enjoying their company. Almost all the gifting is done and we are scaling back this year, both with travel and activities. I can't wait. Nicholas and I are going to build a gingerbread house and take walks after dark when our neighborhood lights up. Joe and I are going to watch old movies and maybe build a fire. It is going to be nice.

Today we went to a local nursery to gather information for our big yard project this winter - putting in new planting beds and building a pergola. Winter is one of the best times to start things like this because there is little else you can do in your yard and, since we live in south Texas, it isn't insanely hot outside. Nicholas loves the garden center and ran around most of the time we were there. He didn't seem to fond of the roses for obvious reasons, but really loved looking at the plants and statuary. We picked out the three trees we are going to be planting in the spring (we'll be buying them in a couple of months when they go on sale), bought some dirt to plant our lime tree in, and picked up a variegated jade plant for inside the house. I love this plant so much I keep going back into my room where it sits on my dresser just to gaze at it adoringly. It's insane. I just hope that I don't find myself kissing it uncontrollably because, you know, that would damage its leaves. I really have no idea about gardening or planting, so I felt this little foray into the world of experts would do us some good, especially considering that the projects we are about to be undertaking are complicated and require a level of skill that my husband and myself find sorely lacking. The truth is that no one out there has a solid, 'best-way-to-do-things' idea in their heads. So it looks like we're winging it. Hmmmm, winging it with power tools should be fun. I'll try to update about this project as events develop, that is, if the bloody stumps where my fingers should be still have the ability to type.

This morning I was supposed to wake up at 5:30 to get to the Black Friday sale at Target by six. Um, that didn't exactly happen. When my MIL called at 10 to ask what I had accomplished, I could only claim making breakfast; getting dressed hadn't happened yet and I had not gotten any shopping done. Instead, I headed out during Nico's nap and was surprised at the ease in which I was able to purchase the items that I needed. It was great, I got a parking spot near the door and only had one person in front of me in the line. They still had the 'big gift' I wanted to get for Nicholas on the shelf and a few other things that I found at rock bottom prices. It was so easy, I proceeded to TJ Maxx afterward to try and finish off my x-mas shopping altogether. TJ Maxx looked like a hurricane hit it, but it was also pretty vacant. I finished off shopping for Nicholas (his gift from us at the super low discounted TJ Maxx cost) and got a couple of things for my mom. My shopping is now almost completed. I think I have this black Friday thing figured out: go around 2 when all of the suburban housewives are collapsing from exhaustion.

Our Thanksgiving yesterday was great. We headed down to San Antonio to have dinner with Maria and her family. We ate so much food that I think I tore a muscle in my stomach. It was so yummy and then we had dessert to contend with. The children really seem to enjoy each other's company and spent most of the day chasing each other around the house. Nicholas fell asleep right after we pulled out of the driveway. I, of course, forgot to take my camera with me so there are no pictures to be had, but I'm hoping to go to San Antonio a few more times before next semester since I know that is going to bring my social life to a grinding halt. I've got to have pictures of those two together.

Well, I better get cracking on real life, we are going to the Children Giving to Children parade and having people over for dinner tomorrow and I should at least attempt to put up the layer of toys on the floor. TTFN.

Happy Thanksgiving Charlie Brown!!!!

I should have prefaced my last lamenting entry with the news that Joe and I have discovered that there is no way that we can afford for me to go to the fancy school here (the state school, that is). I talked with the advisors and was told that a semester was going to run us about four to five-thousand dollars. I'm not eligible for financial aid, of course, because financial aid restrictions have become even more stringent over the past few years. I also cannot take out any student loans because, while Joe and I have been working tirelessly to pay off our debt, our credit rating is kind of crappy and we are not eligible for federally-subsidized loans. So, I have to come up with a plan B. I am not good with plan Bs and really just prefer to set myself to doing one thing mindlessly. I hate this changing tracks in midstream. It might be good, though. It seems to be causing me to reassess why I am doing what I am doing and realizing I should have probably thought about this well before now. Also, my brother said something to me that was disturbingly sensible: why am I getting a classics degree to teach high school history?

My loving brother just came by to generously deposit two Thanksgiving pies on my countertops and disappeared into the night. He did this to both provide me his employee discount and to aid in my quest to avoid the grocery store madness at any cost. I think he is attempting to make amends to me for the state of his room, the amount of help he has been asking me to give, and to abate his guilt for his recent request for me to built him a desk. Didn't know I built furniture in my spare time, did you? Neither did I. I consider it a trial run for the desk I'm building for our new office. Who knows when we are going to get to this, though.

I enrolled in school for next semester and am all paid up. I'm taking Physical Geology. It is every Tuesday and Thursday from 7:05pm to 9:50pm. I have no idea what I'm doing. Right now I seem to be at a point in my life where I feel adrift and have nothing I'm really fired up about working towards. For such a long time I've been working towards the definable goal of getting into the local four-year university in their super-competitive classics department and getting my graduate degree and teaching. Now I find myself asking if this is really what I want to do with my life. I'm still puttering around in community college because, to be honest, I do not want to make the life sacrifices that it is going to take to reach this goal of mine. What is worse is that it is never going to get any better. I quit the pre-med track when I decided that I was not absorbed enough in it to have it take up my personality and my existence. But doesn't everything become that all encompassing? Maybe it is just my existence right now that isn't fitting into the picture properly. I have a small child that is the center of my world and that deserves to be put first. I have a new house that needs work. I have so many family obligations that I can't lift my day planner anymore. I have so much in my life already. The question that I'm asking myself is if these are just excuses.

Nicholas and I went to Michael's today to buy him a small tree for his playroom, some lights, and about a hundred colors of Fimo clay. On the way we passed by the grocery store and I had to say a prayer of thanks that we didn't have to go in that mess today. It was completely insane, and this is the insanity I could see from the street. I saw a group of people standing by the cart return area waiting for a cart. You couldn't even turn into the parking lot the line of cars was so long and the strangest thing of all - they had shuttle service at the elementary school two blocks away so that you could park and ride - to the grocery store.

This morning I woke up feeling a little better, at least stress-wise, but my asthma/allergies are driving me up the wall. They are driving me so up the wall I've started taking my allergy medication again. I should have known better than to brave the allergies around here without pharmaceutical assistance, but one of the weird side-effects of the allergy medication I take is that it gives you vertigo. I don't like vertigo. Okay, the first couple of times it was pretty cool, but it got old when I started being completely unable to predict when it would occur. Try pushing a shopping cart down a packed grocery store aisle when you're having an attack of vertigo and you'll understand why I stopped. The other down-side to having allergies this bad this morning is that I can't take Nicholas to the zoo like I planned. We don't get many weekday mornings for just the two of us and I wanted to do something fun. I'll have to think up something that doesn't require us to go into the dusty out of doors and steers us clear of all the retail trappings of pre-holiday shopping. Maybe we'll hit the museum, maybe we'll go to one of those "paint-your-own" pottery places; who knows.

I made progress on the re-claiming of my house this week, somehow. The bathroom is now mine again! We hung up a couple of pictures, cleaned out all the drawers and cabinets, replaced the shower curtain, and bleached every non-porous surface. I would have taken before and after pictures, but it was too frightening before. Now it is a lovely, meditative place like it should be. There is little in the world that makes my skin crawl quite as much as a bathroom that hasn't been cleaned in months. Especially a bathroom that is used primarily by a twenty-something guy who worked as a butcher.

The bedroom, on the other hand, has seen no progress. In fact, if possible, we took a step back. Joe and I discussed our floor replacing options and decided that now was not the time to replace the carpet with the expense of Christmas at hand. Upon measuring the room and picking out the flooring, we discovered it would cost about five-hundred dollars to completely re-do the floor. That is just going to have to wait. We'll get a rug in the mean time since it is going to play guest room to our holiday entourage. In case you're wondering, this is the floor we picked out: FLOR tiles Needlework and Soft Cord in Brown. Yes, I know, BROWN carpet. It will hide a multitude of sins, though. The room is going to be painted in light blue, cream, and brown, so it's working off of that. Now, I just have to de-funk the place and get started.

And . . . we finally got some of our Italy pictures online. You can check them out at this website. No captions yet, but I think you can figure out the major sites. Also, Nicholas is the child (obviously), most of the pictures of the guy with long hair are pictures of my brother, I'm the harried looking brunette who appears to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and my mom is in there as are some other traveling companions.

The weekend passed uneventfully because, well, Nicholas was sick the entire time. I ended up skipping the hiking and the outdoorsy stuff and the cleaning obviously went out the window. We just sat on the couch watching movies the entire weekend. So now my house looks like a bunch of sick people lived in it over the weekend; tissues everywhere, laundry piled up, but Nicholas feels much better. Now I have to find a way to get motivated not to sit on the couch and perpetuate my laziness and get my house in order so that we can get dressed in the morning and not stick to the floor as we walk across the kitchen. This task is made all the more difficult because I was helping parent at Nicholas' school today and am utterly exhausted after chasing around twelve three year-olds. AND, we just received my mother-in-law's gifts to Nicholas for Christmas which are sitting in my closet as a visual reminder of the fact that the f**cking holidays are upon us and that I better get my ass in gear with that or else I'm going to end up at the mall paying twenty times as much as I intended to because I waited until what would be the reasonable time to purchase gifts and can't find anything for the thirty (I'm not exaggerating) people on my list. Hmmmm, I seem to be feeling a little hostile. So, maybe instead of being productive, I think I'm hopping in the bath with some anti-anxiety medication and a glass of wine and I'm going to tell my husband to come pull me out when I start to resemble overcooked spaghetti. After all - - - Tomorrow is another day :)

I really haven't had a single minute free this week, so I have a lot to post about, but I have really got to play catch-up at home. No long entry this afternoon. Especially considering that Nicholas is home sick from school. Instead I offer you the glory of my week in bullet points:

- Travis moved out on Friday, but didn't really move out until Sunday. He, of course, left all the crap he doesn't want here for me to take of.

- I am going to have to completely gut his room in order for it to be livable again.

- I went to book group on Monday night even though I didn't read the book. It was nice to get out, though.

- Joe has been out two nights this week and I'm going out again tonight. I don't think we are ever going to see each other again.

- I have spent every moment of my free-time in the past week helping my brother move or putting his furniture together or shopping with him for household goods. He has not said thank you yet.

- I'm on antibiotic eye-drops from an eye infection that started when I was rubbing my eyes from all the dust we were kicking up moving Travis' stuff.

- I had a lot planned to do today while Nicholas was at school, but it all had to get cancelled. There was a Starbucks peppermint mocha in those plans :(.

- Tomorrow we are supposed to go hiking with a group at Enchanted rock and I don't see that happening with a sick kid, but I am going to make our potluck side just in case.

AAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!! I better get back to work. We're supposed to be ripping out Travis' carpet this weekend (yeah right) and I need to get that ready in addition to all the other chores I usually have to take care of.

Why yes, that was me at Depeche Mode last night, thank you for asking.

Last night Maria and I went to go see the band that I have the most CD's of and have seen in concert the most times. This makes 6 times total that I have seen Depeche Mode. I'm such a groupie. I probably should have at least listened to their new CD before going, though, as that was what they played the most of. You have to give me a break on this one because I was in another country at the time it was released. The people there were different than I'm used to seeing at a DM concert. There were a lot of baseball caps and tube tops, not quite like the monochromatic goth gear that was most prevalent on their Songs of Faith and Devotion tour. I was not made to feel old their either. Most of the crowd was around my age or slightly older, making the fact that they were screaming out for songs off their newer albums all the more odd. They did not play the songs I most wanted them to play, but did throw in a few of their old favorites - Personal Jesus, Question of Time - for good measure. So good all in all. I didn't particularly care for the guy elbowing me in my boob while standing in line for t-shirts, but the guy in front of me who kept forgetting what his wife told him to get and kept asking me was pretty funny. Yes, pretty good all in all.

It must be nice to be my brother. On Friday, he moves into his first apartment. He's 26. My mother covered the deposit and will be paying for his first and last month of rent. He will be getting all new furniture to fit into his efficiency apartment, located in the center of Austin. He won't have to worry about taking one of our older computers because he just received a brand new laptop. I also just got offline from purchasing his Christmas gift from my mother - she got him a trip to Berlin during New Years. Bastard.

By the way - I have allowed anonymus comments on the blog again so that commenting is easier. Keep your fingers crossed I don't get spammed again. Apparently I'm too lazy to set up a blog on my own website even though I installed the software on my server. I could block them so much easier that way.

More on this weekend while Nicholas watches television before his nap: Like I said, I went to a scrapbooking party on Saturday afternoon. It was bad. It was with a group of women from my friend Annie's church, which made it worse. However, making them uncomfortable did make up for it in a small way. We took out our pictures and everyone had shots of their children or their wedding or their loving and adoring family. I had pictures of me getting drunk with my friend Maria, me behind a giant wooden cut-out of a dragonfly, and lots of me and my friends making asses of ourselves. No one knew what to say when I went around asking whether or not I should use the pictures of me in a drunken stupor or me making strange and contorted faces. Annie was on my side and started acting strangely by putting the scrapbooking stickers on her face. We were ignored like strange and poorly behaved children. I did like getting to see Catherine's house finally and see baby H, though.

After leaving there I went to pick up my husband and child and went to another friend, Seanna's, house for dinner. Seanna's son had his third birthday while we were gone, so I brought him his birthday gift. We talked about work and school and being grown-ups and the idea of second children. The plan is that we get around to doing this dinner thing a few times a month. They're coming here next weekend which I hope will make me less likely to fall asleep at 8 like I almost did at their house. Nicholas also had a great time with his friend and I think he would enjoy having someone over that finds playing with play-doh as fun as he does. Of course, for some reason these get-togethers don't ever seem to model the idea of the dinner parties in every home magazine I've seen, but we like them and we're too lazy to do it any other way.

Sunday, my in-laws came to visit us from Houston. Joe's father has weekends off for the first time in forever and they are having a hard time keeping themselves entertained. It was also one of the first weekends they didn't have family in their house after hurricane Rita (most of our family is still rebuilding). The brought Nicholas a very loud toy car and several new winter outfits (thank god) and they brought me some chocolate covered pecans that have mysteriously disappeared. After lunch, they left. It was a really great visit. Still, it was very strange to have them here because they haven't ever visited just because before; we go there often enough. There was one moment that surprised me; I don't remember what we were talking about but my step-mother-in-law made the comment "that's why we're not surprised that you don't want any more kids." I didn't know that I had expressed this to my husband's family yet. I know Joe hasn't talked to them about it. I guess they figure that since we haven't gotten down to business yet that it is just assumed we don't want any more. I wish Joe could be so understanding. He still wants more, damn him, and I worry that he is going to win since no one is on my side.

Other things we did:
- Went to the grocery store five times. Still have things we need to get there.
- Went to Toys R'Us and bought birthday gifts for all of the October/November birthdays in our lives. I also started on X-mas shopping.
- Weeded the front beds and pulled out all the plants that died while I was away.
- Did thirty-million loads of laundry. Still have four more to do.
- Ate the rest of our Halloween candy.
- Got Nicholas ready for his first day back at preschool (today) where I got to be "helping parent"
- Cleaned the bathrooms and realized that I have to re-caulk our bathroom now that I finished the guest bathroom.
- Thought about cleaning the rest of the house and then decided against it.

As proof that my life lacks even the subtle hint of interest, I present into evidence my day yesterday. Yesterday I fell into the suburban housewife stereotype and I fell hard. Yesterday I went to my first sales party with someone who was serious about selling me something. Now, it wasn't a Tupperware party or a Mary Kay party; it was something much more deviant. I went to a Creative Memories scrapbooking party. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to speak out against the at-home sales reps. Everyone has to do what they can to get by. I even did Body Shop at-home sales to get the free stuff because I couldn't support my body care habit by any other means. Why I'm in total disbelief that I went is because I never intended to buy anything. I went because I didn't have anything else to do on a Saturday afternoon. We had tea breads and made scrapbooked cards and I got to talk to adults. When the catalogues went around I just leafed through mine then pretended to be engrossed in conversation when it was my turn to order. *Sigh* What has my world become?

Gah, since I got back from Italy my allergies have been going haywire. Probably due to the fact that I stopped taking my allergy medicine while I was away because I didn't have ANY allergies. Now I have to wait the week or so for my allergy medicine to build up enough in my system to start working again. Mornings like this and I start thinking of allergy shots. Make it stop!

Last night my dad came to visit and my brother took us all out to dinner. The husband was out with friends seeing the new Wallace and Gromit movie, so I felt rather extravagant getting to go out. Typically it takes both the husband and I to wrangle to monster at a sit down and order your food restaurant, but I was with family so I didn't worry too much. I gave my dad all of his Italy souvenirs and his favorite was the uber-cheesy DaVinci's Last Supper sculpture that I picked up at a tourist stand (I knew it was going to be his favorite). The baby fell asleep in the car on the way to the restaurant so we had a nice meal where we lamented the state of politics. Travis and my dad also discussed why Travis doesn't have a girlfriend and they both agreed that it's because women are crazy and not worth the effort. I felt quite put out by the line of discussion and felt the need to defend my species. They granted an allowance for me, but the rest of women are still crazy. He left too soon, but he'll be back next week. I need someone to feel disillusioned with.

To whomever it was that invented bathtub crayons,

There is a special place in hell that is reserved for you. I know that it seemed like a good idea to keep kids entertained in the bath and encourage artistic creativity. However, for those of us parents that don't scrub the tub after every child's bath, they are a huge pain in the ass and stain every towel that I put over the edge of the tub. But that isn't the worst, oh no, do you know what my creative child does when he discovers the bathtub crayons are empty - he uses real crayons. Yep, I thought he was just sitting there playing with his toys, while I got the laundry together and started it but he was using the jumbo orange crayon to draw a face. So I hope you feel heavy guilt and remorse for what you have done, I have enough to deal with during the day.



To the makers of Mr. Clean magic eraser,

I love you. Really, really love you. I know that whatever you put into that thing will probably make my future children grow gills and that using them is probably environmentally akin to clubbing a baby seal, but you make my life so much easier. May you be blessed with a long and happy existence.

Nicholas, it seems, is still on Italian time and fell asleep this evening at seven as we were on our way out the door to go to a small show by a friend's band at a local restaurant. I can't tell you how difficult it is to eat crispy fish tacos while balancing a sleeping toddler on you shoulder. I shouldn't have been surprised, Nico didn't have a nap today because I started back to watching baby H and he wasn't having this naptime without mommy laying down with him and cuddling (and subsequently also falling asleep). He'll get used to it again, but I had a sleepy/cranky child on my hands at about four. The show was good and I felt so much like my old self getting to go out on a weeknight without having to worry about finding a babysitter. Admittedly, it shouldn't count when you drag along your three year-old, but anything that gets me off of the couch and out in the company of my peers should count for something. We hung out with friends and saw a lot of people we knew and it was really a lot of fun. Soon enough we are going to go back to our reclusive selves but tonight we could pretend that we were popular.

Other things that happened today:

- I booked my mom's flight for Christmas. She is just going to make a long weekend out of it and is flying back to Seattle on Christmas day at 6 in the evening.

- I made reservations to a child's gingerbread house decorating workshop for Nicholas and I and I had to go with my third choice for the day and time because they were already booked. This is for December, people.

- I got confirmation that the piano will be delivered in 30-90 days.

- Travis found an apartment and will be moving out next week if his application is approved. He is all pissed and sulky, it seems, for reasons that I can't understand, but I think that revolve around the fact that we haven't jumped out and exclaimed "just kidding" to him. He really has to move.

- I was on the phone for the better part of today securing appointments and dealing with all the fun stuff I received in the mail while I was gone. I'm still not done with that.

- I got up at 5 this morning. It looks like my hours are adjusting at a rate of one a day. I should be back to normal by day after tomorrow.

- I tried to upload my photos directly from my camera, but due to the number of pictures I have on my gigantic memory card, my computer bit the dust. I'm going to plug it in tonight and just try to copy over ten at a time. I have 210 pictures per memory card and my ancient paperweight just can't fathom why I took so many. Travis' laptop has them (I uploaded each day), but I haven't gotten it into my hands long enough to burn acceptable size CD's.

- I can barely see straight so I'm going to bed.

I feel that I should elaborate on my previous grand piano post thing so it will sound less random.

My mother lent my uncle a whole lot of money several years ago to prepare his house for sale so that they could keep it from being foreclosed upon. Well, that didn't work out. My uncle didn't do crap and so my aunt and my cousin floated the house for awhile before my cousin bought the house and kicked my uncle to the curb. The sale of the house to my cousin resulted in zero equity, of course, so my mom was left in the lurch. Except for the fact that they had promised her my uncle's grand piano as collateral. My uncle has spent the last few months trying to sell the piano and screw over my mom (basically), but hasn't had any success. So he e-mailed her yesterday telling her that the piano is hers and that if she wants it, come do something with it. My mom e-mails me to tell me that she doesn't have any room in her place for it, but that she had promised to give it to Travis if he wanted it. My brother is moving into an efficiency apartment in a couple of weeks, so that isn't going to work out. I then made the mistake of asking Joe if he wanted it, to which he replied "Are you serious?". I really wasn't, but alas I think we are now going to end up with a giant grand piano; bigger and more expensive than my car.