Blocked

Its one of those weeks where I don’t have anything worth posting about.  That’s the blogger dilemma isn’t it?  Post for the sake of posting or go quite for awhile until something inspires you.   I’m not at all inspired but figured I’d pop in and say Hello anyway.

I’ve just been puttering around, planting flowers and doing some edging and making brick flower bed borders in a few places in the back yard,  cooking, laundry, taking care of the baby.  Just regular life stuff.  Not much to report.    My cat may or may not be ill, we are waiting for the labs to come back.   I almost hope he is sick, it will be easier than if hes just being a PIA.  We’ll see.  So, I’m still alive, just keeping busy.  Hopefully I will have something to say again, soon. Oh, I did order Nate a pair of baby crocs, I am SUPER excited about that.  Baby feet in baby sandals….NOM to the NOM, Yo!

Hope everyone is having a great week!

 

 

Paint my door red and call me Elizabeth Arden

Okay, it’s not red but I love that movie*.   After weeks and weeks of looking at two paint swatches I finally bit the bullet.   My only regret is I waited a year and a half,  why did I live with such a boring house?  Oh yeah,  I was a hippo last summer.  Anyway, I love it!  Funny enough, Mike and I were standing in the front yard last night looking at it and he said “it looks like our place in NC”  Where have I been?  He is right!  Our townhouse had grey siding and a blue door, I hadn’t realized it before.   Subconscious, maybe?   I always did like that blue door.  I just wonder if I’m the same person as I was back then, will I hang a wreath now? 
Maybe, maybe that’s how you really rock the suburbs?  By mixing the old you with the new….  by wearing your 7′s with your Dansko’s?  I don’t know but I’m trying.

 *Steel Magnolias- but I bet most of you knew that?

 

Pear Shaped Saturday

Do you ever wake up bored?  Ugh.  That’s the best way I can describe my mood today.  I had a few plans, one being to put together the new patio table I got yesterday but I cant lift the box, I opened it to get it out in pieces, still cannot get it out of the box.  Mike is at work so that will have to wait. Then it was to buy paint and flowers, but moody baby (gee think he is feeding off Mom? !) After that plan went down I got antsy, nothing to do. NOTHING!  So, I started cleaning,, that got boring too, since most everything is already clean, cleaning clean things is lame and BORING.  Then, I decided I wanted to go to Target and Starbucks but shoot, I need to shower and Nate’s a little pissy, decide to wait until after nap time. Then, I decide to make cookies.  Nathan protests, whining and whining and blah blah blah!  I pop the cookies in the oven and move him to his crib with some toys and hop to showering.  I have 11 minutes until the timer and most likely, the kid, go off.  Everything was going just fine until…

Damnit!

So, then we needed to go for a walk. Me to relax, Nathan to have something else to look at, Bruno to work off the two macaroons!   Baby and Dog are both sleeping now,  my wish for a iced chai has been replaced with a margarita on the rocks, two limes. 

 

Go-Quick!

You must go congratulate Kathie!  Hold on to your ovaries…..

Tummy Time dropout : 2

Nathan has given up on this once again.  He roll’s when he feels like it but mostly its pushups and then… this.  Im not at all concerned but what gives kid, you’re 6.5 months old?  Maybe the mat is just too cozy. Heh.

 

The Big Give

I just watched the finale tonight, were you all watching it?  What an amazing show.  If you were not, the premise was you are given a time frame and X amount of money and basically left to come up with a plan, you “give big or go home.”  Most of us wont ever be able to do anything like what was accomplished on this show.  But, I was amazed at what you can get people to give, time or money, sometimes both by just asking.   The people on this show called on strangers and they gave, big time!  They raised loads of money every week, were talking 100′s of thousands.  Big.    It is absolutely amazing and somewhat inspiring.

My  first job outside of the restaurant business was at The Pierce County AIDS foundation.  All these years later that is still the best thing I have ever done.  I loved that job, I believed in what we stood for and while I didn’t make squat I was as full as I had and would ever feel when it came to what I did from 8-5.  I was the volunteer coordinator which allowed me to help others give big in their own way.  I hope one day when Nathan and his future sibling are a little older that I can get back into that line of work.  This show made me miss it.

This past week when I was loading my groceries into the car a family rolled up next to me in a car that I heard die over my shoulder.  I got into my car and sat, watching out of the corner of my eye from behind my sunglasses.  The man who was driving put his head into his hands and started to cry.  I waited, you know that feeling you get… do I drive away, do I offer to help.  I sat another minute and looked over, he asked if he could use my phone.    A very long story short. my cell battery died before this man could get anyone out to help him.  He had no money, was out of gas and was a diabetic and without his insulin.  I had to help, I had already involved myself, I couldn’t just leave now.   I ran to the bank, took out some money, went to the trunk and got him a bottle of water a granola bar and a banana and wished him luck..  But, that wasn’t enough.  By the time I was home I was shaking,  my sister is diabetic so I knew full well what he needed was a shot, he needed more help than a tank of gas and a granola bar.  I called 911 for him to get him his insulin so he could get home.   I know what could happen to him without it, and I knew he would be in the parking lot for a least 30 minutes (another part of the long story) after that,  I was able to calm down. 

I guess my point to this is we all have the opportunity to do the right thing now and then, but do we ignore it or go for it?  I’m sure my Dad will disagree that I did the right thing here, Nathan was in the car with me and I probably should have just minded my own business.  I couldn’t do it,  this family needed help and I was there. 

Next time an opportunity presents itself you can help too.  It doesn’t have to be big, these people didn’task me for anything other than to borrow my phone.  When that failed I found another way.  Being kind can change someones day, just holding a door open and smiling, tiny things make real change.   I believe in pay it forward. 

Comments are closed.  I’m not looking for anything by telling this story, or for doing what my gut told me was right.  I am just putting it out here so maybe next time someone needs help and you are able, may you also be willing.

Word to your Mom

Happy Earth Day

PS.  You betches better be Recycling!

You know you’re a suburban house wife when

You email your sister a picture of your gleaming grout.  Really, I did. 

In the past year and a half that we have lived in this house I have spent countless hours on my hands and knees scrubbing this grout.  It’s never clean enough for me no matter how hard I scrub.  Well, this weekend I dropped a sharpie and it made a mark on the tile.  I went to my go-to man, Mr. Clean and his magic eraser, got the marker off and for some reason wiped the grout too.  Well, as if I needed another reason to pledge my undying love for these dang erasers…now I have one more.  A box of 4 and 40 minutes later, it was a beautiful thing!

 

 

 

 

 

Turn off your TV week

So, it is here.  April 21-27,  the week that you are supposed to turn it off, get outdoors and spend more time as a family.  You gonna do it?  Nah, me either.  Not completely anyway.  Nathan and I don’t watch TV together anymore.  There were a few dark weeks of winter where he would sing away watching what I watched and at times Noggin, but not anymore.  I wised up, he is much happier in his saucer or even on the floor with a rattle.  I can get just as much done or not with him that way, as I can if he is watching.  So, with Nathan cured where does that leave the rest of the clan?

I would have never, ever said that being a SAHM would have me watching less TV than a I did before I was a parent.  NEVAH!  I love TV, my reward for working out wasn’t ice cream (you cant call something you eat everyday anyway a reward) it was TV.  I am an HGTV addict (now its just TiVo’d for when I have time).  TV is/was a really big part of how Mike and I love to relax together.  Sunday nights of (o-m-word we are D.O.R.K.S.) 60 minutes and The Amazing Race.  There were a few nights a week were we would rush home from the gym and try to both be showered, dinners plated and in front of it in time for 8pm.  Ahh, that was the life.

Things now are so much different.  We never watch TV together during the week anymore.  We will watch a few saved shows on the weekends after Nate is down for the night and that’s about it.  I spend my free time doing other things, much more productive things.   Since we purchased the big boy booster a few weekends ago, something insane happened without discussion.   We are eating at the table, we strap in the boy and sit up in chairs, not on the floor.  We talk to each other.  Nathan eats his real food just once per day right now and around 2-3 pm, so it isn’t because we are eating together.. but it just happened.  That single act killed the TV.   It’s good timing really, with Mike working as much as he is.   See, before baby we carpooled and worked at after work together so we had our time to catch up on the day and chat.   Both of those activities are now done as alone time so we need to talk, not just zone out.

Honestly, I would have gone for it this week if LOST weren’t coming back this Thursday.  There is no way I can read a book while it TiVo’s just to watch it later.  No way.  That little red record light would just kill me.

So, what are your TV habits?  Are you turning your TV off this week? 

The one where my head comes out of the sand

As Spring continues to rock my world I am questioning my health over the past few months. 

I’m realizing that I was quite off because hot damn do I feel fantastic now.  I felt some of this one long grey winter in NC so I knew what it was about but this winter was so bad… I don’t know if maybe I had a touch of PPD along with Seasonal affective disorder or what?  I have to say I’m pretty surprised that no one told me that I wasn’t being myself.  (Not you guys but maybe Mike?  or Mom? ) I remember questioning a friend when we meet at the mall when N was 8 weeks old.  I told her how I didn’t answer the phone, I didn’t want to leave the house.  It was cold and dang by the time I got out of the house it was time to feed him again anyway.  I was very much in the throw my hands in the air stage.  We stayed in my bed a lot during the day, snuggling and watching tv and reading Dr. Seuss and Curious George.  I was happy smelling the top of his head but outside of that was cold and unknown.  I tended to just stay in my own lair.   I am just really surprised at this overnight change in my state of mind.   I am seeing all of this behavior very clearly all of the sudden.   I ended up chalking it up to the Mini-Pill which made me co-co for cocoa puffs, stopped talking it and felt better.  Less jump out the window, more stay in bed sniffing the baby.  Still, not me.  But good enough.  Now?  Now,  wow.  I shake my head a little.  Why didn’t I see it?  I knew the eyes in the mirror looking back at me were empty, unless they were looking at Nathan, there was not much life in there.  I know too, that when people would come to visit I would brighten up instantly.  So happy for interaction, for a reason to blow out my hair.   When Mike would come home from work I would cling to him, so happy to have him home.

Now, I am still happy he is home but it is so much different.  I’m happy so he can see Nathan Jump in his lap and to hear him chant da-da-da and see how high his teeth got today.  Fun stuff, not OMG where have you been I neeeeed you.

This wasn’t some dramatic Brooke Shields – Down came the rain event.  It was much more mild than that because it never was about the baby.  It was me,  I never had any disturbing visions of hurting Nathan, but I would have thoughts of getting in the car and driving away, leaving him in his crib and go park in a lot somewhere and just sleep.  God, just sleep.

On what appears to be the other side, I didn’t know!  I didn’t recognize this.  I am shocking myself to be writing this at all,,, I had this conversation with my Dad when N was about 4.5 months old.  Him, sitting in my living room with me going on about how lucky I am, so in love with my family, so “happy” and he said he never understood PPD, and I said neither did I.   I didn’t.  I guess I still don’t.  You are happy in a huge way but when no one was around, there was a strangeness that kept you in bed.  That kept you in your PJ’s until 15 minutes before your husband gets home so he doesn’t know  you were under a blanket on the couch most of the day.  I though I was mostly okay,  just had a little cabin fever maybe?  A little bit with the weather, rather than under it?

I don’t know why I am writing about this really, other than it is a way for me to work through the feelings.  I don’t know if I needed outside help even.  I never asked for it, but I didn’t recognize this until just now.

Anybody else have a light bulb moment like this?  Where your awakening is so dramatic you realize that this was a little deeper than you knew while you were in it?