The Craft I Get Myself Into

I'm Officially a Dick.

2011-11-26T09:50:00.001-08:00

But I don't feel bad.

First, let me acknowledge the fact that exactly NONE of my scheduled posts actually posted. Wait, I lie. One of them did. The rest are just sitting there, mocking me. I'll post them manually in the coming week since most of them are crafty and can be translated into the Christmas season.

But before I try and behave like a responsible blogger, let me tell you about something that just happened which makes me feel like both a genius and a jerk at the same time. But mostly a genius.

Emma has reached the irrational, hysterical tantrum age. If she doesn't get exactly what she wants, or is told she needs to be patient, or something doesn't work the way she thinks it should, or she has to do something she doesn't want to do, she will fling herself down on the floor and pitch a total rager. Par for the course when you're 3, really, but when you've spent 4 days cooped up in the house with a baby exhibiting the symptoms of needing to be placed on a 5150 hold, you start to question your ability to allow your 3 year old to age to 4.

Today the random meltdown was so incredibly random that my mind broke just a little bit. You know in the old cartoons, when Elmer had had all he could take of Bugs' bullshit, and as he snapped you heard breaking glass? I'm pretty sure I heard that noise. Emma was sitting in her tiny recliner, with her feet up, watching cartoons. She was ready to get out, but instead of a)climbing the hell out of the chair or b)asking for help, she started to whine and fuss about wanting me to carry her out of the chair.

Well, I had my hands full at that particular moment, and said to her, "Climb out by yourself, big girl. You're not buckled in."

That did it. She started throwing a screaming fit because, get this, she wasn't strapped into the chair. I guess she'd rather I restrain her more. I was about to bust out the Mommy Voice and send her to her room for time outs (which never work, btw) when the phone rang, and inspiration struck.

"Emma! Oh no!" She stopped mid-screech. "Santa knows that you're being bad, and he's calling to give you a warning!" Her eyes got huge. I picked up the phone (it was a telemarketer. I think I'm going to do this every time they call, now, no matter what time of year it is.) and said, "Hello, Santa. I guess you heard Emma's temper tantrum." Confused telemarketer is confused and stammering. "Yes, I'll tell her. I hope so, too. Bye Bye."

Emma's eyes are wide. The crying has stopped, and her little hands are clutched to her chest. Quietly, she asked, "Santa onna phone? Emma was cryin... Santa comin?"

I told her that when she started to throw her tantrum, it activated Santa's Naughty-Meter, and he knew that he needed to call and remind Emma to be a good girl. But he'll only remind her a few times, so she needed to try and remember to be good all by herself. And then he told me that if I needed him, all I had to do was call him.

Worked like a fucking charm. We had another tantrum at nap time, because she was given the choice of laying on the couch or on the floor to watch Sesame Street before bed, and instead she chose to run around like a nut and have a sassy mouth, so she went to bed instead of finishing her show. I had to "call" Santa again to give him an update on Emma's behavior.

Then we talked about rewards for good girls who follow the rules and are good helpers, and no rewards for bad girls that don't mind their mommies and are mean to the people who love them. I invented a new aspect to the Santa story, and told her that Santa was very nice, and he wanted to come down our chimney and give her presents on Christmas, but that if she was naughty, it would clog up the chimney and Santa would get stuck. And she didn't want to get Santa stuck in our chimney, did she?

I know, it's a dick move. But I'm at my wits' end, and what's the point of Christmas if I can't use it to make my kid behave? I won't get to do it for very long, and if nothing else, it's a great way to deflect telemarketers.

The easiest thing you'll ever make

2011-11-04T00:00:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the first installment of my pre-scheduled holiday posts. Today, I'm going to gift you with the best and absolutely most simple recipe I have ever encountered in all of my cooking life. 2 ingredient pumpkin muffins.

That's right. 2 ingredients. Absolutely only 2. Unless you decide to fancy them up.

You Will Need:
one box of spice cake mix
one large can of pre-made pumpkin pie filling. Not the plain puree, but the kind that's ready to pour into a shell and go.

Then:
Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees.

Open the can of pumpkin pie. Open the box of spice cake mix. Get a big bowl and dump them into it. Stir.

Now, you can either put this in a muffin tin (line your cups, though. It does not release easily at this size) or spray down a loaf pan and pour the batter in.

Bake until the top begins to brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with only sticky crumbs, not batter. No matter what you do, it won't come out clean. They're just too moist.

Let them cool all the way before you try to take them out of the loaf pan or peel the cupcake liners off. They're incredibly moist, and if they're still warm, you'll lose half your pumpkin bread.

These are so simple to dress up. Sprinkle the top with pumpkin seeds before you bake. Add some pecan pieces to the batter. Dark chocolate or semi-sweet chips are tasty, too. They don't need icing, but if you choose to, cream cheese is awesome. I have that long, pointy piping tip, so I like to inject my icing right into the center. You could also line a jelly-roll pan with parchment paper, bake, and the spread the icing over it once it's cool and roll it up. That could be really phenomenal.

That's what's so awesome about this recipe; it's so simple to execute, and there are so many ways you can fancy it up. I think this is going to be a Thanksgiving morning breakfast staple.

The girls at work call them crack muffins.

Gone, but not forgotten

2011-10-29T12:29:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know. I did it again. By now, everyone should really just come to expect this from me. Disappearing for small periods of time should be part of the routine. I always come back, and generally with lots and lots to say. And this time is no exception.

First of all, Emma is three! We had her birthday party, and I managed to live through it, though only just barely. Shockingly, the person that pitched in and made it possible for me to get everything done that I wanted to do was my sister. WTF is that shit all about, man? Apparently, poverty is good for her. When she has money, she's a bitchy, poser douchecanoe. Take all her cash away and she becomes a reasonable, stable - dare I say it - fun person to be around. I actually got to say the words "I couldn't have gotten any of this done with out help from my sister". It was surreal. At some point in the future, I'll do a post about every nuance of the party, but not today. I'll give you a picture of the birthday princess, though.

Self-Rescuing, of course.

Work is going well. I'm settling in , making friends, easing into an actual social life with people who go out and do grown-up things, and then maybe come over and bring their kids over to play, because they're the same age(ish) as Emma, and we've got some Martha Stewarting or Paula Deening to do. I'm still far nerdier and book-smart than my new friends are, but that's okay, because they don't judge me for it. If I start to geek out over something they will either ask me a question about it if it's interesting to them, or roll their eyes and say, "There she goes again with the nerds." It works for us.

Shekky, I've found someone even more inappropriate than I am. It's strange not to be the most outspoken and filthy person in the room. I'm not used to being the mild version of someone.

We've had more than our fair share of actual drama around the house, though. About a month ago, Papaw had another attack of atrial fibrillation in his heart that kept him in the hospital for more than a week. The doctors decided that it was caused in part by his medications, which they tweaked, and also in part by the fact that he's an 87 year old diabetic man. So they threw out the idea of a pacemaker. Papaw talked to my uncles about it (he didn't bother with Mother and I until later on, because I've learned that he's not just a racist and a bigot in his old age, he's also sexist. Neither one of my uncles has anything to do with Papaw's daily life. One of them lives literally down the street, but the only time he sees Papaw is when Papaw invites himself over.) and they both said that the thought of him with a pace maker made them uncomfortable. So he decided that he wasn't going to let them put one in, even though it was the safest choice.

I was pissed off. I called each one of my uncles and tore them a new one, and then I packed Emma up and took her to the hospital with me. I put her on Papaw's bed and said, "Would you like to see her grow up? Would you like to be around for her first day of Kindergarten? To watch her learn to ride a bike? To see how much more she looks and acts like Meme? Or would you like to die in your sleep because your heart gave out during a nap?" He opted for the pace maker.

While he was getting it put in, I was kind of scared. What if something happened and he died? For some reason, I voiced this fear to my sister, as she was the only other person in the waiting room with me. Her response, "No matter what, I'm glad you got him to do it. If you hadn't, I would have brought Maddie and Major up and used their puppy dog eyes on him til he agreed." I felt better. I've decided that if she and my brother in law start looking like they might get back on their feet again, I'm going to sabotage it. I'm getting attached to having a sane person as a sister.

Papaw is now fine and is thankful that I, in his words, kicked his butt. He feels good, has more energy, and doesn't have to worry about his heart any more. He says that he never realized how much he worried about it until he didn't have to anymore. So, I guess score one for bullying?

Now then. I'm going to share something with you guys... something that I'm not proud of, but something that I think I've kept you all hanging on over for far too long. When I did it, I thought it was a great idea, and the best option for the parties involved. Now, after I've had some time to live with my choices, I see that I've made a horrible mistake. It's easier to show you than it is to tell you, so... here.

And there it is. My secret shame. My terrible choice... in paint colors.

Dude, this isn't the way it was supposed to look, this god-awful salmon color. It's like living inside a watermelon. I can't relax in it, I can't accessorize it, and nothing I've gotten matches it one I get it home. The pieces that I've bought in attempts to coordinate are, for the most part, pretty fantastic. I like my bedspread, though it's another hurdle I've thrown into my own path because it's so busy and the pattern is so particular. I love the silk peonies I found for my shelf, as well as the wall art above my bed and my turquoise Buddha. That mirror on my dresser? It's a real antique from a great-great aunt, and it's fantastic. But together, they're a nightmare, I feel.

So, I'm re-vamping. I've got a plan, I've got an inspiration, and I've got a direction to move in. I've picked out my new wall color and gotten fabric to use in a new bedspread. I've learned how to take the horrible 1980's texture off the walls, I'm planning shelving and storage and rugs, and I intend to photograph every project and post it here.

Speaking of posting, you all know that we're entering the month of Craftathon, which always keeps my hands too busy to type up a post. Since I don't end to really get into it until closer to Thanksgiving, I'm thinking ahead and creating a bunch of posts that I'll schedule ahead of time to run once a week. I've already got 2 of them: one crafty, and one recipe. I've got a handful of other stuff planned, tutorials and life hacks and whatnot. Things that are half-written and just need finishing or photos or something. I intend to do periodic updates on what's going on around the house, but, well... you know how bad I am with those schedules.

I'll do my best not to go weeks without an update through the holidays. But there's your quick-long update.

Whew!

2011-09-11T18:47:00.000-07:00

Crap, what a ride the last two weeks have been. Everybody fell behind at work, so I've been working 12 hour days and a Saturday shift to help get everyone caught up. We have a turnaround time of 5-7 business days that we're contractually obligated to keep, and we weren't sticking to it. There's been sort of a ridiculous upswing in requests for medical records because of the beginning of the school year, and it piled up.

That was tough. I've been exhausted, I started getting sick, developed a cough and some crazy fatigue, but I pressed through it and came out the other side only slightly worse for wear. Then, on Thursday, just as I was rising to the top of my giant pile of work, Emma got sick at school, and I had to miss work to stay home with her. Mother co-oped with me so I only missed one day instead of two (which my boss appreciated openly), but then on Friday, Papaw had me take him to the ER.

His heart rate had dropped perilously low and stayed there, he felt unreasonably exhausted, and couldn't catch his breath. He was convinced that it was time for him to die. Turns out they just had him on too high a dose of amiodarone, and he had to spend a couple of nights in the hospital until his doctors decided that he was safe to send home. But, this is the second time he's had this sort of heart trouble, and while he's fine now, I'm afraid that pacemaker surgery might be lurking around the corner.

Speaking of around the corner, Emma is three in 10 days, and I can hardly believe it. I swear I was just putting things together for her second birthday a couple of months ago. Last year, we had her party at the splash pad, but it's during the height of pop-warner football season, so everything was really crowded, and all of the good picnic areas and parking spots were taken. So this year, since I've put in enough work on the house to feel like it's finally worthy of company, we'll be having her party here.

In the hopes of making life easier on myself, this year instead of hand-making her invitations, I just designed the image and sent them to the printer. Dude. If you have a professional printing company in your town, and are in need of birthday invitations, I highly recommend using them. I send the image, the wording for the inside, and the font file that I wanted, told them how many I wanted (30), and when I needed them by and 12 dollars later, I had my invitations. Worth it.

What do they look like, you say? Why, like this:

Adorable, and only slightly soul-less.

I've done my test cakes, and Emma will be having a white vanilla cake with cream cheese icing, and strawberry mousse between the layers. Even though we're doing it at home this year, I don't feel the need to hassle with a fussy, tiered cake. Those take forever and are so stressful to pull together when I've got a bunch of other stuff to take care of. So this time, I'm just going to do a sheet cake with a simple scallop edging in icing, and these little guys in gum paste, dusted with pearl powder in the middle. I can work on the gum paste over a series of evenings and really fuss around with it.

The only problem I'm facing now is wtf to do with a room full of three year olds for 2 and a half hours.

I'm running out of clever post titles

2011-08-21T09:40:00.000-07:00

You know, sometimes those things come easy, and other times, not so much.

First of all, the skinny on the new job. It seems to be going well, though at times I'm convinced that I'm doing everything wrong and any minute now, they're going to figure out that I have no idea what I'm doing and can me. Then, Chelsy will ask me to do a quick project for her because I'm fast and not as behind as some of the other girls, and I feel better. She's checking my work every day, so she knows what I'm doing, and I don't seem to be making any huge fuck ups. So, there's that.

Now, on to the subject of New Guy. He's not as nice to talk about right now, because things have gone and made themselves complicated. I think the last time I mentioned him was about 2 weeks ago, the day before Clan Bitchface descended on the household. Well, I talked to him on Friday, and when I told him I'd gotten the job, he was appropriately stoked. Then, on Saturday, he started acting weird. He wasn't as chatty as he has been, and he was starting to question the meteor shower date. His main concern: it was a 45 minute drive to my place, and he'd never "dated" anyone before.

On Sunday, he didn't answer the two texts I sent him. On Monday, we talked for about 20 minutes before I went to bed, but he was distracted and not really talkative or interested in anything I had to say. On Tuesday, I cancelled our date. Yeah, I did it via text, which was a little tacky, but I don't have any interest in being jerked around. And I was nice about it. "I'm going to do us both a favor and cancel Saturday night." I got no answer from him.

In fact, I didn't hear a breath of a word from him for two weeks. Then, on Friday morning, I get a random text asking me how work was going, and did I want to give him a call at lunch time. My curiosity got the best of me. I don't really care whether or not he and I date, but I do care if I still have a friend, so I called him. And we talked for the majority of my lunch break. Here's what I learned: He got cold feet, because he likes me, but I live farther away from him than he thinks is wise. If we got together, he felt like we wouldn't see enough of each other.

To be honest, I don't really know what to do with this information. I wasn't married to the idea of us dating - though I wouldn't have resisted if it had gone down that road. But I do miss having a friend that's in my same area code, so I told him that he needed to relax and just let things happen if they're going to happen. I proposed meeting for coffee, and at first he was good with the idea, but by the end of the phone call, he seemed very noncommittal. So, meh. We'll see what happens. Wishy-washy is not my bag, and its p[art of the reason I've stayed single for so long. I can barely deal with my own indecision, let alone someone else's.

Tuesday is my birthday. I'll be 31. In 9 more years, I'll begin to age backward.

Working is hard, y'all!

2011-08-18T21:24:00.000-07:00

I saw your question, Lori! You're not forgotten, it's just been a long week of learning and my brain feeling utterly fried every night when I get home. I'm sure that will get better as I stop learning a million new functions every day. I'll do an update over the weekend. For real.

Wooly Shrug

2011-08-14T09:57:00.000-07:00

What's this? I've got a job and I'm blogging? I know. We'll give the credit to the full moon and the meteor shower. And also maybe the fact that this job has better hours for avoiding exhaustion, and a boss who actually knows how to do her job.

In the interest of keeping it relatively short (and so that I can get back to knitting a very cute little inchworm toy for mother's boss' new baby) I have a completed project to show off and, of course, the pattern (such as it is).

The Wooly Shrug

This is utterly simple, and a perfect project for the beginning knitter because there are no increases or decreases, and the only stitches you need to know are knit and purl. Here are the ungodly easy instructions:

Using a bulky yarn (I used a bulky homespun) and the needles instructed by the manufacturer, cast on (loosely) 132 stitches (If you've got narrower shoulders, you can cast on fewer if you like, but it won't hurt you to have it be too big. This isn't a tailored garment, here.).

Row 1: K1,P1, repeat to end of row.
Row 2: P1, K1, repeat to end of row
Row 3-6: repeat rows 1 and 2
Row 7: Knit
Row 8: Purl

Repeat until the garment measures 36 inches from the cast-on edge, then repeat the 6 rows of K1,P1 ribbing.

Cast off loosely.

Lay your knitted block out flat with the ribbed edges at the top and bottom. Fold the top edge down to the bottom, and safety pin the corners. With thread or scrap yarn, stitch from the ribbed edge up, leaving about 7 inches un-stitched for the armhole. Repeat on the other side.

Click for larger view

Voila! A shrug!

We'll talk about that awful color on my wall later on.

Early Rising: It's For The Birds

2011-08-08T07:27:00.000-07:00

So I got a job.

I'm sorry I didn't keep you guys more closely posted, but there really just wasn't time - it all happened so fast.

Friday, everyone was coming to our house to visit. And I mean everyone. I had about 20 people here. But none of them got here till about 11:30, so I took the time to go online and do a little quick job hunting. I applied for a Release of Information clerk position, and within 10 minutes of sending off my resume, I had an email asking me more about myself. I responded and immediately had an interview scheduled for later in the afternoon.

The interview went well. My potential new boss and I bonded over our bizarre allergies (hers: pancakes made with Pioneer brand mix, mine: cheap pepperoni. It's something in the artificial drying agent.) and my love of old folks. It seems that I had the job before I even made it out of the parking lot, because I had barely gotten home and changed out of my interview clothes when she called to offer me the job.

Just in the nick of time, too. I was starting to wonder how I was going to afford to keep sending Emma to school, and her birthday is in a little over a month. If she wasn't in school, how was I going to be able to invite all of her little friends? But, no sooner had I started becoming concerned with all of this than I got a job, and all is right with the world again.

The pay is good, the hours are good (regular and with the option of overtime) and I think I'll enjoy myself. The only issue - and it's not even an issue, really, just a matter of getting re-accustomed - is getting up so god-awful early in the morning.

Wellington spoiled me! I didn't have to come in until 9, and both Emma's daycare and the office were 5 minute drives from my front door. But now, I'm going to have to get up at the crack of 6:30, and that's going to take some real getting used to.

Somehow, I think I'll manage.

A few quick brags before I go...

2011-08-04T11:45:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, the hordes descend. Not just my sister and her kids, but also my brother, Bitchface, and their kids. So, I've spent the last week in a haze of cleaning and completing the projects that have either been begun and left unfinished, or contemplated, readied for, and then never begun. Would you like to feel a quick moment of bone-crushing exhaustion? Allow me to tell you my list of accomplishments this week:

Moved the ginormous china cabinet out of our cramped dining room and into our little-used formal living room
Elevated it from "crowded place to stash unused dishes" to "elegant display case for family heirlooms"
Stripped the hideous wallpaper from the dining room walls
Repainted dining room to match the kitchen
Spray painted the 1980's brass chandelier to the deep cream color we're using in lieu of white
Finished the detail tiling around the sink area in my bathroom
Scrubbed bathroom till it shines
Cleaned Emma's room
Cleaned my room
Shampooed every rug in this joint, including the carpet in the family room, which is a converted 2 car garage.
Scrubbed the kitchen
Deep-cleaned the sofa in the family room
Power-washed the front of the house and patios - front and back.
Cleaned the grill
Applied for three jobs
Had 2 interviews

Are you exhausted yet? Because I know I am! But it's worth it,because now I can sit back and enjoy tomorrow with the kids without worrying that nobody's noticing the renovations I've done because of the pudding stain on the carpet. I've still got things to do. I've got to go shopping tonight and get everything for the barbecue tomorrow, and maybe boil the eggs to make deviled eggs, bake the cherry cobbler, and possibly the Kentucky Derby pie. Photos to follow, I hope.

New Guy is proving himself to be pretty awesome. He texts me nonsense at least once a day, just because he thinks of something he feels I should be aware of. Examples.

From Tuesday: "Look to your left. That item is now your only weapon in the impending zombie apocalypse. You better hope to god it's your tiny chainsaw on a stick, because all I've got is a coffee pot and a pencil, and that's not going to get us out of here alive."

From yesterday: "I thought you should know that I've got a secret box full of Mr. Rogers sweaters which I wear as often as possible."

From just a few minutes ago: "On the rare occasion that I go to Sonic for drinks, I like to play death metal at ear splitting levels. Keeps the elderly on their toes."

I'm starting to think he may be the one for me. We have a date next Saturday night to go watch the Perseid meteor shower. How awesome is that?

I've begun a board over on Pinterest.com. If you'd like to know things about me, it's not a bad idea to take a look. It's really a fun idea.

Also, not a brag, but congratulations to Shekky's little brother and his wife having their first baby! Love it when the brilliant people of the world choose to spawn. Shekky, I need more details so's I can knit or stitch them something fabu.

Surprise!

2011-08-02T21:09:00.000-07:00

If I seem to be blushing, it's because I probably am. And if I appear to be smiling like some kind of idiot, I'm probably doing that as well. You know how they say that you often find what you're looking for when you stop looking? Well, I'm not going on the record as saying I have, but it would surely seem as though I've just taken one giant leap toward... something. Not sure what yet.

When I was working at Wellington, two of the girls in the office decided that the only way I could be happy is if I had a man. They didn't seem to care that I disagreed, and were constantly bringing random dudes they knew to fix me up. The problem? One of them was an ultra-conservative Marine's wife with an unnatural love for Mickey Mouse, and the other was a backwoods hillbilly who drove a monster truck. No man they knew was going to be anything like my type.

In order to spare myself the embarrassment of them springing dudes on me at work, I made a deal. I'll join an online dating site, make a viable profile, and see who bites. For months, it's done nothing but confirm what I already knew: I am the last remaining specimen of my species in a 100 mile radius. I've got book learnin', I voted for Obama and I'm not even remotely embarrassed (hell, I plan to do it again based solely on the repeal of DADT), I sport a Human Rights Campaign bumper sticker, and I'd burn a Bible before I thumped one.

I've been more homesick since I made that profile than I think I've ever been. The matchmaking site would send me automatic matches based on compatibility, and every last one of them was from Austin. They seemed to be perfectly awesome guys, but... impossible. I gave up quickly. Reading all those profiles for those cool dudes just reminded me how different I am from everyone surrounding me. I stopped checking the staff suggestions when they were sent to me.

Then, last week, I got an email from a guy about half an hour away who is in my same boat. Out of his element, feeling like he's the last of his kind. He's adorable, he's Atheist, and he's going to school to be a biologist - totally cool. We've been talking consistently for the last week, and things are going just like I like: slow and smooth. I'm in no rush. He's in no rush, but he's always excited to talk, and he makes me laugh. I don't know where this is going or how it'll end up, but it's cool. I've been intentionally single for so long that it feels weird even entertaining the thought of making room in my life for someone else.

But worrying about that is jumping the gun, for sure. We'll need to be in the same room together before we can really say anything about where things might go, and it took me a full week just to feel comfortable talking to him on the phone. But I look forward to talking to him, and I think I'm a happier person now that I know I'm not alone. There is at least one other sane person living in this area. It'll be slow moving, but I'll keep you posted.

Make a little birdhouse in your soul

2011-07-29T12:31:00.000-07:00

I've been having trouble with my new bedroom. I chose a happy duvet cover for my bed, full of bright flowers and cool color combinations that I really love. The problem is (one of them, anyway) is that the pattern on the bedspread makes it difficult to find bed accessories unless I'm buying matchy-matchy things from the design line, which are overpriced and frankly, not really things I want.

I've recently started cultivating my love of birdies into something that's not quite a collection, but definitely a running theme. And I've had the idea for a bird pillow in my mind for weeks and weeks without having the time or concrete plans to make it a reality. Then one day, I was coloring with Emma and the bolt of lightning that is inspiration hit me. Three days later, I had a pillow. Allow me to share it with you:

For the back side of the pillow, I used some icy blue faux raw silk that I think is actually upholstery cloth. It's leftovers from what I made Emma's Christmas stocking out of, and I really like it as a pillow. I might have to get more and make a neckroll or something. I also got to learn a new stitch. I've never used the chain stitch before, but I've always really enjoyed the look of it when it's used for a fill. I think it worked well.

And, just in case one of you would like to make your own version, here's the pattern I created! It's made to create a 13x13 pillow, but since it's such an open design, you could enlarge or reduce the image to suit your project without distortion.

Click to enlarge

Ta-Da!

2011-07-28T13:17:00.000-07:00

I really thought this would take longer, but nope. Here's the new look and the new title. I'll start posting things in the next day or so. I've been typing and photographing.

Revamp!

2011-07-22T12:18:00.000-07:00

I seem to always have either something going on with no time to talk about it, or nothing going on and plenty of time to talk about it. And not just lately, but for almost a year now. So, in an effort to promote more postings and fewer angry bitches complaining about how I'm a disgrace to free entertainment everywhere, I'm switching things around a bit.

So, here's what's happening. I think this is going to become more of a crafting blog, where I can post free embroidery patterns, new recipes, old recipes, how-to's, knit-alongs, and general brag-booking. There will probably be the occasional short story or update on what's going on in life in general, but it won't be the focus anymore because I just can't keep it consistent. When something happens, I'll post about it, but this will help fill the voids in between. Because crafty things I can sit down and do in buckets, and then schedule them to post regularly so nobody has to go months without a peep just because my actual life is swamped.

I'll be changing the title of the blog (but not the domain name... nobody will have to update their Google Readers), as well as the look and navigation of it all. I haven't settled on anything yet, so I'm sure it'll be a couple of weeks before I'm ready to go. If you want to check back in, go ahead, but it's probably easiest to just subscribe to updates. That way no one has to waste precious milliseconds waiting for the page to load every couple of days.

Holy Cow, y'all

2011-06-16T09:26:00.000-07:00

I didn't mean to leave you guys hanging from that cliff for a week. How can I have just had such a busy week when I'm not working, and Emma is at school for the largest chunk of the day?

I'll tell you how: My house is verging upon spotless right now.

I don't think it's been so clean since my grandmother was living, before her head injury deteriorated her. So that's something like 10 years. My room still isn't fit for internet photography, but it will be by the end of the day (I hope) and Emma's room is more than a little bit disastrous, but I defy any mother to be able to keep a two year old's room clean when all she loves to do is pull everything out of her toy box and roll around on it. It's not a war zone. I can stumble in there at 3 in the morning and not step on alphabet blocks or anything else pointy, and when company comes, the door closes. So I'm satisfied.

No, I've been up to my eyeballs in job search and minor home improvements. Catching up on all of the things that I was too exhausted and broken down to do when I got home from working 10 hours straight. Which is what I'm going to address today, like I said I would.

Here are the things that I wanted to get out of my job, just on a logical level. 1) Financial security. I wanted to be able to stop living paycheck to paycheck. 2) Social interaction with people like myself. 3) To be able to get Emma into a good preschool so that she could make friends. I managed to achieve exactly ONE of those goals, and that was getting Emma into a good daycare. It's small, well-established, and has an actual daily curriculum. Emma loves it there! She knows her ABCs, can count up to 20, knows all of her colors/animals and sounds/shapes, etc. And she's turning into such a chatterbox. Also, a biter, but we're working on that.

So here's how it went down with work. I know that I dropped off the face of the planet pretty much as soon as I started the job, but that's because it was so bone-crushingly exhausting. When I got home, I still had suppers to cook, a daughter to snuggle and play with, and housework to try and get done. It left no time at all for my blog, quiet time, my own projects, or even something as simple as being able to iron, fold, and put away my laundry.

Here was my normal day: Get up at 6:30 to shower, make Emma's breakfast, get her dressed, get myself dressed/made-up/hair done, and get out the door by 8:15. Because of my position as "The Face of Wellington", I had to be more dressed up, made-up, puffed and fluffed than any other employee. I ran the risk of being written up if I wasn't in the female-equivalent of a three piece suit. I would then start my day at work at 8:45ish by fielding calls from lots and lots of angry family members of our residents because they were unhappy with something, real or imaginary.

The Administrator is a very young man who has never managed so much as his own department, let alone an entire facility, and has only been in the workforce in its entirety for 5 years. He has no time management skills, no organizational skills, and very little respect for anyone's time but his own. As a result, every meeting he called would drag on for hours, unchecked, because he was constantly getting off track. The morning meeting that was supposed to last no more than 20 minutes routinely bled into an hour and a half. While that meeting was going on, no one could begin their own days, and messages and tasks would begin to pile up.

Then there were the residents. I won't get into the specifics, because with the exception of a couple of serial-offenders, none of them could help the issues they were causing. But things like refusing to wash and then insisting on sitting in the lobby all day long covered in black flies, refusing to let anyone change your briefs, yelling, cursing, swinging at anyone who tried to give you your meds, and in multiple cases sexually assaulting staff and other residents... that's not something that untrained, non-medical staff should be dealing with, alone, for several hours a day because there's no one free to help. I'm CPR certified, patient, and I really loved and cared about the welfare of our residents, but I'm not trained to handle the fall risks that don't want to stay in their wheelchairs.

Daily, I wouldn't be able to take a lunch because everyone in the front office that was supposed to be backup for the phones would leave for lunch together, all at once, and stay gone for extended periods of time. And the administrator was none the wiser, because they were salaried, and he was never where he was supposed to be in the first place to monitor comings and goings. If I tried to broach the subject with him or with the repeat offenders, I was either told "It's none of your business how long we leave for lunch," or "Just tell us you want to take a lunch, and we'll come back in time!" or "Just leave. The phones will get answered." Except that they didn't, and people would sit in the lobby not knowing where to go and what to do, where to find their loved ones or put deliveries... I'd come back to mayhem.

For my first four months, I had our marketing director/admissions coordinator to fall back on slightly. She'd been the administrator before the new guy came, and she knew what she was doing. She'd push and fight and force and talk to corporate and any other number of things she had to do in order to make sure that I was getting the support I needed. But it didn't take long for her to get fed up with constantly having to do that, and she found another job. She left in February, and all of her duties fell to me.

So now, in addition to answering the phones and keeping the front office running smoothly (or trying my best, anyway), I also had to process all of the new admission inquiries, became responsible for the state of our census (how many residents we had) verifying all their insurance, checking availability and costs of medications, completing medicaid applications, all 112 pages of our admissions contract, make sure that rooms were ready, that networking luncheons were scheduled and supplied... all while answering phones, conducting tours, handling the resident bank accounts, dealing with families and case workers... it was just so much. Too much for one person to do, and I said so regularly.

There was a reason why I was hired. Because Sandy was doing everything I was now doing, and she couldn't handle it all. It was a two-person job, and when you try and take a seriously two-person job and lay it all on one individual, quality control falls by the wayside in the rush to make sure all tasks are completed. It's an impossible situation, and when you're vocal about not being able to meet all of the demands, and your boss just tells you to "deal with it", well... it makes for disgruntled employees.

People started quitting in droves. The State was in the building almost every week on one complaint or another made by staff or residents, and the facility wasn't making any money. Tensions were high, attitudes were horrible, and it was all being taken out on me and the social worker Katie. Somehow, everything that was going wrong was all our fault. Even nursing shortfalls! Budgetary issues, dietary issues, non-paying residents.... all of it was laid at our feet by the Administrator.

I stuck around. I tried to ride it out, because I really did feel that if I wasn't there, then the care of our residents - people whom I loved very much - would start to slide into the abyss. I felt as though there were few people in the facility that were looking out for their happiness and best interests. So much of the important work was falling to the people who weren't qualified to handle it, and directors were more concerned with covering their own asses than actually doing the jobs they were supposed to be doing... I would have to talk myself into getting out of bed every morning.

The final moment of truth came when I refinished the kitchen. It was something that I'd been putting off because it was so much work, and I was so exhausted all the time. But Memorial day weekend came, and Mother was off work for three days straight, and I was too. We'd already bought all of the supplies, and the kitchen really really needed fixing up. You guys saw it. So Mother watched Emma while I did the labor, and it was magnificent! I even had Monday to recuperate from all the ladder climbing, painting, stretching, tip-toes, and crawling on the floor that my fat ass is so unused to these days.

Except that one day wasn't going to be enough. When I woke up on Monday morning, my left knee was so swollen that it looked like someone had replaced my patella with half of a grapefruit. I couldn't put any weight on my leg without the knee buckling, and it wouldn't bend. I spent the day in the recliner with it propped up, alternating hot and cold compresses, downing ibuprofen like breath mints. By that evening, I could put easy pressure on it and was able to ease a knee brace over the swelling. I slept with it propped up on pillows, wrapped in an ace bandage and slathered in Tiger Balm. By doing that every night and spending most of my evenings on my butt, I managed to make it through work during the day.

But Friday morning, it was so swollen that the skin was pulled tight and shiny, and I had to call in to work. I was told that if I didn't come back with a doctor's note, not to bother coming back at all. Fine. Our family doctor is a good friend, and he said he'd see me without a charge (because I don't have insurance, because the "fantastic coverage" I was promised at my hire turned out to cost over 600 dollars a month). They had to draw off fluid, and he put me on prednasone to reduce the swelling.

He told me that I was going to have to stay off it for at least a week, keep it elevated, keep it still. I told him that there was no way! If I left my job for that long, I might as well not go back to it, because it sure wouldn't be waiting for me when I could walk again. Dr. Jim has known me since I was about 2 or 3 years old. He's been Papaw's doctor for almost 30 years, and Mom's for almost as long. He's a close friend of the family. And, by complete coincidence, his father is the medical director at the nursing home. He looked me in the face and said, "Well then what the hell are you doing in that job in the first place?"

And it made me stop and think. What was I doing? My house was a wreck, I was a frazzled mess, I wasn't making friends or decent money, and Emma was starting to favor other people over me because I was always so grouchy and stressed out. Papaw drove me home, and I was pretty much silent the whole way. Conflicted. What about my residents? What about our finances? How could I leave this job that I had wanted so badly - that I had whined and bitched and moaned and cried for so long over needing?

That afternoon, when Mother got home, we sat around the dinner table and talked about it. I'd just gotten paid, and with all my overtime (which I was reprimanded for having to put in) as long as I spent on absolutely nothing but the necessities, I could keep Emma in daycare for 2 and a half months while I looked for new work. A little bit longer if I took her week of summer vacation during those 2 months. We all discussed it, Mother and Papaw prayed about it, and by Sunday afternoon it was decided that I should quit.

It didn't go over well, to say the least. I was called all sorts of names, accused of being a failure at my job, and abandoning people who needed me. I was warned that I'd be blacklisted from working in healthcare anywhere else in the metro area, and that I wouldn't get any sort of recommendations if anyone called to check my job history with them. By Tuesday, that had changed to "What do we need to do to fix this and get you back?" and by Wednesday, it was back to me being a traitor.

I miss my residents. I'm sad that I wasn't able to explain to them what was going on, and I know that some of them will be very hurt by me leaving. They'll take it personally, and that's the last thing I want, but I really feel like I did the right thing. The only thing I could do, really. I'd tried every avenue I had available to me to rectify the situations, and I was shut out. At some point, I had to put my own welfare, the welfare of my child, and of the rest of the people who have to live with me at the forefront. And I'm not completely without references. Katie has promised to give me glowing reviews if I use her for a reference, and one of our nurses has promised to do the same. Her son and Emma go to daycare together, and are best friends. I watch both of her kids on a pretty regular basis, and while she and I aren't close friends, we're definitely friendly.

Now then. I've got some placemats that need making. We're starting the grand re-painting of the dining room next week, and I've got sewing to get to.

Before and After

2011-06-07T21:27:00.000-07:00

Saddingly (as my old friend Joel would say), this isn't the post where I show you pictures of my new bedroom. Not because I've forgotten, but because it's a giant pile of laundry and unmade bed right now, and has been for almost a month and a half. I'm also reconsidering the wall color... I loved it in my head, and I loved it for the first couple of weeks, but now, after almost 3 months of trying and failing to accessorize it, I'm starting to really loathe it. So I'm contemplating a different color, but I haven't settled on one yet. I'm sure I'll post about it once the time comes.

Nope, this is the before and after of my horrible kitchen! Oh, how I've hated this grease-trap in the almost 3 years I've lived in this house. Let me show it to you, in its "before" state:

Ignore my mess. Notice the awful floor and 30 year old grease stains on the wall.

Yes. That's really all the counter space I have.

Don't know if you can tell, but there's a plexiglass cover over the god-awful wallpaper.

Let's talk about that horrible floor for a second. A) It doesn't match the wallpaper. It never matched the wallpaper, even when it was new. B) It's textured, but not in a way that makes it look like stone or wood, just in a way that catches dirt and grime and holds on to it, no matter how hard you scrub. C) it was laid down slightly crooked, so the grid is wonky, which drives a person like me absolutely insane.

The Formica "wood" counter tops? The ones that don't match the outdated honey oak cabinets? Blech.

Pretty much it all had to go.

Mother and I had been planning this for a long time, and had everything picked out ages before I actually got down to business. For starters, we got the new dishwasher. We have plans to get a new stove and microwave, but when it turned out that the money to do it wasn't exactly forthcoming, I decided to go on ahead with it.

I took the doors off of all the cabinets, painted everything, traded out the old, horrible Goth-style handles, and then put them back up. Every wall was covered in plexiglass, which I removed. Then I took down the wallpaper (which the idiot builders had put up three times over. Oh yes, that's right! Three identical layers of the same god-awful wallpaper! I think they were trying to get rid of a horrible mistake.), and painted the walls. We'd bought floating floors, so I didn't have to rip up the nasty linoleum to get rid of it. Just laid the new over the top of it. I also put in a new tile back-splash at the sink which was, amazingly, the easiest part of the whole ordeal. Also my favorite end result. I think it adds a little extra something to the room. The special touch. Some pop.

It took me two solid weekends, one of which was a three-day holiday. I won't be doing any more improving on the house for a good long time, I think. Have a look at the afters!

Oh yeah, took down the old, broken pull-down shade.

You can see the rod for the cafe curtain that I made a couple days later. Cream sheers. Lovely!

Old stove and microwave don't look as shabby now, eh? Blue canister will be going away once I find a replacement.

I even almost love the fake wood counter. At least, I can cope with it until we can afford to replace it.

Yay! Back splash! I got a little messy with the grout, but I've tidied that up since this picture was taken.

Glorious new floors!

It seems so much larger, and is flooded with light, even from just that one, tiny window. I'm so proud to have done it all completely on my own!

Eventually, I'll be taking that cluttered old bar-top off, and capping that wall with some nice wood that doesn't stick out a foot and a half into our tiny dining room. Rearranging will be happening, and new Pergo flooring will go in the entryway and dining room. The bad wallpaper, which extends through half the house, will be taken down and painted the same weeping willow green color. We've got plans! This house will get dragged into the 21st century if I have to do it one room at a time!

Later this week, I'll tell you the story of how this kitchen prodded me into quitting my job. Oh, cliffhangers!

Homesick

2011-05-24T21:23:00.000-07:00

I've been feeling it more and more lately. I don't fit here in Temple. Liberal Atheist just doesn't fly in small-town conservative Texas. Every day, I see things that bring my differences into stark relief. I miss Austin. I miss the people, I miss the vibe, I miss having things to do. It's easy to meet people there, simple to make friends. Here, there's a lingering worry. Almost paranoia. A small terror that meeting someone will out those differences.

Back home, I never had to worry that the fact that I voted for Obama would label me as anything other than a voter. Or that my pirate flag tattoo would display anything other than a love of good ink. Here, the wildest actions I feel safe making are opting for hot pink toenails when I get my monthly pedicure.

Odd things make me homesick. The new Duffy CD makes me sad that I don't know anyone to enjoy it with me. Priest came out, and I still haven't seen it, because I don't know anyone that wants to go. Same thing for the new Pirates. In Austin, I would have been at the midnight showing.

I discovered that if I put my radio in a specific area in my room, I can pick up my favorite station from Austin. But I can't listen for very long without getting completely melancholy. I feel like I'm missing everything, and fit in nowhere. I wonder if raising Emma here is the right thing to do. I feel like I stick out like a sore thumb... and lonely. I'm also really, incredibly lonely. The more different I realize I am in these parts, the more my confidence is damaged, and the harder it is for me to ever envision myself doing anything but staying at home with my daughter, knitting until I'm crazy.

I can't even watch Treme without missing Austin.

I haven't forgotten about posting pictures of the bedrooms. They just haven't been clean enough to photograph yet.

Oh yeah... I have a blog, don't I?

2011-04-16T20:12:00.001-07:00

I'm going to start out this ridiculously overdue update by saying that Adele is amazing. I'm listening to her new CD right now, and you can thank my love of her music and my janky-ass CD burner for having the time to update at all. If it were working, I'd be folding laundry right now.

I know it's been a stupidly long time since I updated, and I wish I could attribute it to some big life-changing event, or a ridiculously busy social schedule. But the truth of the matter is that it's just been a case of normal, everyday life getting in the way. I'll just jump into it.

Work is going well, despite the best efforts of my boss. He's a nice enough guy, but he's so inexperienced. He has no clue how to be the administrator of a nursing facility that's trying to go from being the worst home in the county to a place you'd actually want to take grandma and grandpa. He's all about image and how we're perceived, but refuses to take serious issues, well, seriously.

In the seven months that I've been working there, we've gone through 2 Directors of Nursing. The first one was fired for sexually harassing every female in the building, and the second one had a mental breakdown. Which I think is actually a crock. In reality, she was incompetent and in way over her head. It just took her three months to realize it.

Meanwhile, the inmates are running the asylum, so to speak. We have a handful of residents that have the staff on their hallway terrified of them. Through threats, physical abuse, and cursing, screaming temper tantrums, they've got about 20 people completely cowed. Bossman won't intervene on behalf of the staff, and that causes all sorts of “Us versus Them” mentality between the nurses and the residents, and the nurses and the front office. I manage to bridge the gap through copious favors and cookies. I may be the only one in the lobby that they don't curse under their breaths.

Compounded by this is the fact that Sandy, the woman who hired me, quit in February, leaving me to do both her admissions job and my front office job. Which was already enough work for 2 people to begin with. So, I'm thoroughly exhausted by the time I make it in the back door in the evenings, both physically and mentally. But despite the stress, the resentment that flares up in me three of four times a day, I still find it to be a deeply satisfying job. I'm happy there. I enjoy both my work and the people I work with, and while I'm not exactly vaulting out of bed fully-dressed in the mornings, I don't usually hit the snooze button. More than once, anyway.

I switched Emma out of her daycare at Crenshaw at the new year. There was a new teacher in her class, and since that woman started Emma had gone from being happy to go to school to crying, running away, and hiding as soon as I said the word “shoes”. She was refusing to eat, and wasn't sleeping through the night anymore. So, after telling the director at Crenshaw what my issue was and being met with a blank stare instead of concern over why Emma was terrified of her teacher all of the sudden, I pulled her out.

I found a place that's got a much more structured day, a better playground, and a smaller class size. After a week or two of adjustment, Emma became happy to go to school again. She walks into her classroom in the morning, and all of her daily reports show her eating (most of the time) and happy. Her vocabulary has grown by leaps and bounds, she is starting to count, she knows all of her body parts, and almost all of her alphabet. Her tantrums are decreasing, and she's just an overall happier girl. It's the smartest thing I could have done for her.

Dad moved out in mid-February, and Mother moved in. Overall, it's been smooth, but mostly because we don't see each other much. Her work schedule has her going to bed early and working every other weekend, so half the time it's like she's not even here. And on the weekends that she's home, I've been doing some serious renovation on the house. Let me tell you about it!

I pulled up all of the carpet in the bathroom and laid some slate tiles. I ripped out the awful awful awful powder blue and orange 30 year old wallpaper and painted the walls a mushroom color and all the woodwork a high-gloss creamy color that matches (and masks) the outdated cultured marble counter top. You know what? I'll just take some pictures.

It's a really small, difficult-to-photograph space

You can see the wall decal reflected in the medicine cabinet mirror.

There you have it. Papaw really hates the shower curtain, but I absolutely love it. Since Emma and I share that bathroom, I feel like it needs to have a little bit of a kid-friendly pop of color.

The weekend after I completed the bathroom, I got down and worked on Emma's room – which I won't take pictures of because it's an explosion of toys. Her walls are a soft peach color, and in looking on Target.com for a cute little growth chart to hang on her wall, we discovered that she has a very real love of anything with an owl on it. Particularly these owls:

She calls them "howies"

So I bought almost (not quite) everything in that décor line, and fixed her room up. There are still some naked spots on the walls, which I've filled partially with some brightly colored and sparkly butterflies, but I have further plans to stitch/paint/felt/draw with crayons about 15 different owls and frame them in a bunch of little frames. Then, I'll collage them together on one wall along with wooden letters that spell out her name. But I've got other projects to finish first.

Oh! She's also graduated out of the crib and into the toddler bed. And, she wears Minnie Mouse panties over her pull-ups. Because she's such a big girl.

Luxury of luxuries, I finally have an actual bedroom. It's just a tiny little postage stamp of a space, but it's mine, and it's got a door that closes, with a lock on it. I've painted it an incredibly bright coral color (that I sometimes almost regret, though never enough to paint it another color) that everyone in the house except Emma hates. She pats the walls and says “Happy”, so I guess that must be the way that color makes her feel.

I bought my very first Brand New Bed. Thirty years old, and I've never in my life had a bed that nobody ever slept in before. I bought this bedspread, which is where the coral color came from. I've got my antique dresser and mirror, and my pole lamp. I couldn't find a headboard that I liked, so I built one. I'll take pictures tomorrow once I've had a chance to fold and put away all the laundry I washed today. Hopefully it won't take me another four months to post them.

Then, I planted a garden. Lara, one of my new girlfriends from work, and I intend to can and pickle and make jam with the fruits of my labor. I've got a really well-sized plot of land in the back yard about 5 feet deep and 15 feet long. I'm growing cucumbers, tomatoes, pole beans, carrots, radishes, kitchen herbs, onions, and even 8 stalks of corn. Some potatoes, too. The peach tree seems to be in a producing mood this season, too, so I've been tending it also.

The next project I started (but haven't finished yet) is Mother and Papaw's bathroom. I installed a taller toilet with an elongated bowl, pulled up the carpet, laid down some light gray slate, painted all of the wood a pearly white, and the walls a really lovely cornflower blue. I still need to seal the grout, update the knobs on the cabinets, and install bi-fold doors to make the vanity area more private.

Next on the list is a total overhaul on the kitchen and dining room, coupled with laying down laminate flooring through out the house. One of the maintenance guys at work used to be a contractor, so he's going to help me with some demo and cabinet installation. When Mother and I were going through boxes for the Big Purge, we found a cache of hand-embroidered linens that my paternal great-grandmother made, and we got inspired.

Oh yeah. I also joined the company softball team. I really suck at it, so they've put me on video and picture duty, which suits me

Throughout all of this, I've lost a small child worth of weight. Back in September, when I started work, I weighed in at a whopping 282 pounds. The fattest I've ever been in my entire life. I'm proud to say that I'm now down to a slightly less shocking 249. And counting. I'm just so busy that it's starting to show in my fatness. Hooray for that.

There's still more to tell. Family drama and dark secrets and happy accomplishments. But Adele is wrapping up her third run of her new album (it's called 21. Buy it, download it, burn it... just listen. It's so good!) and my laundry is screaming for my attention. I promise to try and be better about posting, but I can't give you any kind of schedule – life is just too unpredictable around here, and I'm a busy lady these days.

Tradition!

2010-12-23T10:08:00.000-08:00

Christmas tradition. Every family has them, and some are better than others. I have the best, I think. When I was really little, we did the Santa-beard advent calendar, with tiny candy canes every day til Christmas. We call each other at the crack of dawn on Christmas Eve to demand "Christmas Eve Gift!" which means the call-ee has to go out and buy an extra gift for the caller. We don't get together as a big family unit for Christmas, either. Papaw's birthday is on New Year's Day, so we wait until then and then have a huge bash.

But when I was in about the 4th or 5th grade, I accidentally shifted the tradition into the land of the weird.

Mother left her second husband and moved us from Belton to Austin the day before my 9th birthday, and in a bid to make me feel better about it, she let me choose the videos we rented on Christmas Eve. Testing boundaries, I chose the most explode-y videos I could think of: The Die Hard movies. The next year, further testing my mother, I convinced her to let us watch the RoboCop series. The Christmas after that was Terminator, and then Alien, and then I made us all start watching slasher films. What had started out as childish rebelliousness had become an established family tradition.

In high school, I asked my mother why she'd humored me for so long in my quest to turn Christmas Eve into a bloodbath. Her answer? "Well, we've got to do something to combat all the goody-goody 'It's a Wonderful Life' bullshit that goes on around this time of year."

This year, we're watching the Predator series. All of them.

What are your weird family traditions?

Ah, December

2010-12-04T15:30:00.000-08:00

Or, as I like to call it "The month of craft-your-face-off."

I know I've been neglectful of you guys, but this is the time of year when that's going to happen. I have lots of family that want my knittery/stitchery/bakery/paintery, and not enough free time to make it all happen. I get about 2, maybe 3 hours in the evenings after work, and then what I can scrape together on the weekends, and frankly, it leaves not so much room in the schedule for blogging.

Things are busy around the house, too. Mother has decided to ruin everyone's happy plans with her selfish bullshit, as usual, and wants to move back into the house, because she says she's too lonely in Dallas. After she decided to move up to Dallas because that was where all of her friends are, and she felt she deserved her social life. So now, Emma and I won't get a bedroom after all. Because Mother will be taking it. Papaw isn't pleased about it, be wants her to move into her own place and live on her own for the first time in her life, but he won't tell her so.

Emma is starting to potty train, so there's a constant back and forth of putting her on the potty that keeps me from being able to sit still for more than half an hour at a time. At school, they make the kids go to the bathroom every hour, whether they need to or not, so we've had to keep up the same routine here at home. And honestly, I'm not sure that it's really working. I'd prefer that they only let her sit on the potty when she's actually got to go, because how else is she going to learn the signs her body is giving her?

On the subject of Emma, she's become a very chatty little girl. She has a ton of words now, but she likes to work them into a stream of babble so that you have to listen really closely to the things she says because you never know when she might be actually telling you something important. It's a good trick. I wish I could use it on Papaw sometimes, because he still doesn't listen to anything anyone says until they've repeated it 10 times.

Thanksgiving was so stressful... I can't even say. We did it on Saturday instead of Thursday because of everyone's work schedule, which was good, because I was still exhausted from the insanity that was my short work-week well in Friday. I made my first turkey all by myself from start to finish. I can't believe how many Thanksgivings I've been in charge of, and somehow managed to never be in charge of the turkey.

It came out incredibly well. All the food did, in fact, and I was really proud of myself. I made everything that hit the table, and I managed to not even stress out or snap at anyone the whole time. Everything was from scratch (except the cranberry sauce) which I congratulated myself for, because everyone I'd talked to about it had laughed and said it couldn't be done. Shows how much they know. The night before, I made yeast rolls and all of my pies - mincemeat, pumpkin, cherry, and pecan - and then on the day of, I did the cornbread dressing, green bean casserole, macaroni and cheese, sweet potatoes, cream corn, mashed potatoes, and turkey. I was so beat by the end of the day, but everyone was full and happy.

My sister got sick with a gnarly cold that kept her from being able to bring Maddy and Major, which was sad, but the house was so full even without them that it was almost a good thing they didn't come. And, thanks to a good dose of my brother's home-brewed beer and some heavily laced eggnog, I managed to keep from throttling Nicole. I still effing hate her goddamned guts, though. The way she treats my brother... it's pathetic. His purpose in life is apparently to make sure that she never has to do anything, ever, but she still gets to berate him if things aren't how she wants them. But he's a grown man. He made the choice to marry the bitch, so I guess he's got to live with it.

Papaw pulled him into the office and gave him a piece of his mind, though. Told my brother just how much he disapproves of Nicole and the way she treats him. Pretty much said everything to him that I've wanted to say, which was awesome, because I accidentally eavesdropped on some of it. It's best that it was Papaw who said it, because Clifton will never listen to or respect anyone the way he does Papaw. Maybe he'll start standing up for himself some, though I don't really see that happening.

The weekend before Thanksgiving, my niece Maddy had her birthday party, a sleepover, and desperately wanted Emma to come. Since I was already doing her awesome cake (I've got bad pictures of it in a sec), I said that of course Emma could come, but that her bedtime was at 8, so we'd only be able to stay until then. It's an almost 2-hour drive to Lockhart, and I was really nervous about the cake making it in one piece, even though it was technically in about 4 pieces, because it wasn't stacked or fully decorated yet. But we made it, and everything went well. Emma had a blast running through the house with the big girls, screaming and slamming doors and eating her weight in M&Ms and pizza. Fantastic times were had by all.

Let's see... what else.

Aside from work, that's about it. Which is going very well. I still get frustrated with the professionalism issues I encounter every day, but I'm really trying hard not to let them get to me. I'm making myself indispensable pretty quickly, and hopefully it'll pay off when it comes time to renegotiate my shitty pay. I really feel that if I could just get that where it needs to be, I'd feel completely fulfilled.

Okay. That's all I have, and frankly, it's a pretty healthy update. If you'll excuse me, I've got 4 Socktopuses (socktopi?) to knit. I leave you with pictures of Maddy's sparkly Tinkerbell cake. The quality is crap... I took them on my cell phone.

The top layer got dropped as I was transferring it to its box. I tried to build it back up and re-cover it with fondant, but that front corner is still all slopey.

My only directions were to make a "grown-up-looking, purple, sparkly Tinker Bell cake with chocolate and vanilla and strawberry". And this is what came out. The bottom layer was chocolate, the top was vanilla, the icing was strawberry, and the whole thing was covered in sparkly pearl dust. I win.

It took me two weeks to make and hand-paint all those flowers. Assembly, from start to finish, took about 6 hours.

"Glee" and Social Commentary

2010-11-11T13:16:00.000-08:00

This week, Glee made me full-on cry. One of this week's storylines followed Kurt as the only "out" homosexual in his school. Kurt was being bullied by a jock, and was having a really tough time dealing with it alone - drama ensued (I'm trying to to spoil for people who haven't watched yet). Throughout the episode we saw seemingly innocent comments being made by students and teachers that were like slaps in the face to Kurt, and no one even batted an eye. Long recap short, Kurt found another out gay teen to help him keep his chin up through the bullying. At a moment of weakness, Blaine texted just the word "Courage" to Kurt, and I completely came unglued.

I identify. And I hope I'm not stepping on the emotional toes of any LGBT readers that I may have, but I feel it on the religious level.

Telling people that I'm atheist feels like coming out of the closet. I'm very choosy about who I tell, currently, because of the community in which I live. Temple is so small, and Papaw is a relatively prominent figure. It would get back to him if I were "openly" atheist. But I hate lying, even when it's just lies of omission. I'm not ashamed of my Disbelief, I just really loathe the reactions that I get. And often from people who should know me better - and know better in general.

I try to forgive the ones that don't know me well enough to know better. Our activities director and I were having a discussion a few weeks ago about Papaw's offers to have a Baptist service here at Wellington for interested residents, and she asked me if I was Baptist as well. Feeling brave, I admitted that no, I wasn't Baptist. I was, in fact, an Atheist. She gasped dramatically and said, "You don't really mean that!!" as if I had just told her that I had a craving for the flesh of newborn children. "Just say you're agnostic!"

But why would I do that? I'm not agnostic. I don't believe in the Invisible Friend. In anyone's invisible friend. I told her gently that if I were actually agnostic, I would have said so. But I'm not. She patted me condescendingly on the shoulder and said, "Don't worry. I won't tell anyone."

I can't believe that I should ever have to worry about her telling people that I'm Atheist, but I realized then that I did.

At Emma's Halloween party at her daycare, I discovered that the lunch lady that regularly served my daughter's class forces the toddlers to put their hands together and recite a prayer before she'll let them have their food. I was absolutely livid, and after the party was over, I discussed this with Linda, the daycare director. I told her that had I known she was running a daycare where 2 year olds were forced to say Grace before eating, I never would have walked my child through the front door.

She was shocked to the core. Not because one of her employees was forcing babies to observe her religion before she gave them food, but because it had never occurred to her that someone might have an issue with it. I realized then that I couldn't tell her it was because we're Atheist, because then it would get back to my grandfather, and he'd never forgive me for it. So I told her that it was my opinion that kids shouldn't be exposed to religion until they were old enough to comprehend it. Not too far from the truth, really. If Emma decides on her own someday that she wants to go to church, I'll comply and take her. And then afterward, we'll have a long conversation about it. And even that will only happen if I feel like she's old enough to really understand what she's being taught. But it felt like a lie.

This isn't something that I should be made to feel guilty about. This isn't something I should have to defend, and it isn't something that I should have to explain. But I feel alarm bells going off in my head if I get the idea to tell someone what I am. Because I'm afraid to.

On Glee, Kurt told the bully to go ahead and hit him, because it's not like he could beat the gay out of him. I wish I had the guts to say the same thing to people about my Atheism. Tell them to go ahead and talk down to me, look down their nose at me, and treat me like I'm some pitiable fool that will one day see the light. Nothing they do is going to change the way I feel. This is who I am. I tried really hard to push myself into different molds, looking for the right fit, and it didn't work. Religion defies logic, and I am, at the very core of my being, a logical individual.

Every day is like dying the death of a thousand cuts. I'm bombarded. I want to tell them all to can it and keep it to themselves, but that's suicide.

Kurt, I don't have your courage.

Finally! Oh, it's a dream come true!

2010-11-07T14:34:00.000-08:00

For the last 30 years, both of the bathrooms in my grandparents' house have been carpeted. Whoever decided that carpeted bathrooms were a good idea should seriously be smacked in the mouth. When I think of all the times I barfed on the floor of the hall bathroom when I was a kid... all the times that toilets overflowed, or some potty-training cousin didn't quite make it there in time... I gag just writing that. So many bo-jillions of bacteria festering in that carpet pad. Carpeted bathrooms are in my top ten worst ideas ever.

Papaw has never understood why I think it's so gross. He looks at it and thinks that it's smart, because then he never has to put wet feet on a slippery floor when he's getting out of the shower. The floors aren't cold if he has to get up to pee in the night. Nobody has to mop.

I think I've mentioned before that Papaw is ready to sell the house. I understand his reasoning, but at the same time, I think it's a horrible idea. The economy in Temple isn't in a good enough place for him to sell. There are no fewer than 8 other homes within a 5-block radius of the house that are selling, and which have been on the market for months. And all of these houses are in better shape than ours, with fancier upgrades, and professional landscaping. Our house is in almost the original condition. It needs some serious making over before we can hope to sell.

Aunt Cindy is the one who keeps prodding him into selling, telling him that now's the time, that he'd better sell before the market drops again. He told me last week that he doesn't like to go visit my uncle anymore because every time he does, she starts in on him about the house, and how he needs to sell it. I don't know if it's occurred to Papaw, but I know exactly why she's pushing this idea so hard. Because the way Papaw's will is currently written, any profits from the sale of the house are to be evenly divided between his three children, and Cindy wants that money. She knows that he won't wait till he's dead to spread the wealth. He'd divvy it up as soon as the bank deposited it in his account.

And you know what? I'm okay with Papaw selling the house. Well... not really, but it's his house, and he can do what he likes with it. If I had my druthers, I'd buy it. It's a great house in a fantastic neighborhood. It just needs more love than it gets right now. But we've been arguing for the last few months about when to sell. I want him to upgrade appliances, carpets, fixtures, etc. before he sells. Because I'm not dumb. He won't get the price he thinks he will if he sells it in its current state. And then he'll feel either cheated or stupid, and I don't want him to feel either one.

A series of events lately has prompted him to see the smart in my plan. In June or July, the garbage disposal sprung a leak. We replaced it and then got to looking at the old one, and Dad pointed out to Papaw the size of the drainage pipe, which was responsible for the constant backing up of the sink. The teeth were almost completely worn off of the grinding blades, proving that it wasn't chewing up anything we'd put down it for at least the last 5 years. It was the original disposal that came with the house.

At the end of August, our air conditioner crapped out on us. Papaw had to replace it with an entirely new unit, because they stopped making new parts for the old unit more than 10 years ago. It was illegal to refill the freon, because that kind of freon had been outlawed in the mid-90's. The actual AC unit is directly on the other side of the wall that Papaw's bed is against, and every time it would click on in the night, it woke him up. He can't even hear the new one. And when the first bill was a third of the old, he started to really listen.

He's started looking at new dishwashers now, and has picked one out with plans to have it installed sometime in the coming week. And he's already found a new glass-top stove and mounted microwave that match it. I've been angling for new flooring in the kitchen, because the old has this texture in it that does nothing but trap dirt and look perpetually filthy. He won't let me, though. He says it's too much work and too expensive.

But I finally won one.

This week, Papaw locked himself out of the house, and had to break the window on the back door to get back in, resulting in our needing to buy a new door (it was cheaper than replacing the glass). When he was at Lowe's, looking at new doors, he wandered into the flooring section. He laid eyes on Pergo, and came back singing its praises. I have successfully convinced him to let me put laminate flooring in the hall bathroom. It's only 21 square feet, so I've offered to bankroll the endeavor. That sold him.

Free at last, free at last! No more carpet in the bathroom, I am free at last!

Dear Shows I Watch

2010-11-03T21:08:00.000-07:00

I love you guys, I really do, but I've got a bone to pick with each and every one of you.

Sons of Anarchy: If you don't stop causing new drama before even attempting to tie up the old drama, I'm going to scream. You're already halfway through your season, and yet absolutely nothing has been resolved. You're making me crazy, and not in a good way. I'm a patient woman. I don't expect every episode to be tied up in a nice, tidy package by the end credits - in fact, I prefer that all my plotlines have appropriate time to mature. But let's get real. How long are you going to draw all this shit out? Really? It's not suspenseful, it just feels like you only had one good idea and had to make it last for 13 episodes.

Oh, and while we're getting serious, I understand that there's nothing you can do about Agent Stahl's ridiculously bad nose/lip job, but could someone please hold her down and force-feed the bitch a sandwich? She walks like she's in pain, she's so skinny. Maybe she'd be less horrible if she weren't starving to death?

Chuck. You're my favorite, and I absolutely adore you. I don't like having to criticize - in fact, it breaks my heart to know that I have to even think any of this. Just know that I do it out of love. Please stop packing every single episode with as many broad stage-winks to your nerd following as you can. Having Dolph Lundgren say "I must break you" was funny. Making Chuck interview at a company called Vandalay Industries was also. Hell, I'll even give you props for naming Casey's old team "Packard", "T.I." and "Mackintosh". That was witty. But having Robert Englund quote from Nightmare? Making Olivia Munn a guest star because boy nerds like to jerk off over her, even though she can't act her way out of a wet paper bag wielding a machete? Stop. Just stop. You're becoming a farce, and I can't defend you if you keep doing it to yourself. Just be a good show. Enough pandering.

Weeds: I don't even bother watching you half the time anymore. Nancy Botwin started selling pot to support her family in a time of crisis. She got in over her head just a little bit more each season. Got it. But now? Self-absorbed, selfish, pathetic(sorry, Shekky) cunt. And unremorseful at that. I find it painful to watch. Particulrly the way that she always manages to come out on top, squeaky clean, even though she doesn't deserve to. You lost me completely.

The Big C: I'm holding on. You're in your debut season, and you've still got hope. Plenty of time for the characters to grow. But Paul, you're a whiny man-child, and it makes me ill to watch you. It makes me especially ill to watch a chick as awesome as Cathy not only put up with your ridiculousness, but to be glad when you come back. I'm giving you another season. If you don't grow up by then (or at least make some progress), then I quit.

The Walking Dead: You've only had one episode. So much about you is incredible. AMC is really responsible for some of the best original programming out there. But I'm bothered, and here's why: every character in the show talks like they come from West Texas, Atlanta is the closest big city and all of the license plates on the cars are from Michigan. Please make up your mind. I can't take you seriously if you can't even figure out where you're taking place. I don't think I'm asking too much, am I? Continuity can't be too large a request.

I'm sure there's more. I'm still watching Parenthood, even though I have serious issues with it and hate myself for it every week. But it's like crack. I can't even explain why I watch when it has so few redeeming qualities. I don't even find any joy in hating on it. I have no excuse.

I have more issues with this season of television, and I'm sure I'll get around to complaining about them eventually. Because everybody loves a complainer, right.

For now, I leave you with this: Job is frustrating at times, but overall very good. Emma loves daycare more often than she hates it, and I'm working on an update to Written in the Cracks. I'm typing it at work during slow spots, but it's a bitch trying to transcribe the 40+ pages I wrote before they got me a computer in between taking phone calls. But I have neither forgotten about it, nor abandoned it.

I leave you with this - Emma's Halloween picture. We call this costume "One Tough Cookie". The pearls were her idea.

My, how the mighty have fallen

2010-10-24T10:00:00.000-07:00

I went to visit my sister in Lockhart yesterday. She'd had ovarian surgery last Sunday night, so I offered to make a casserole and bring it over so that she didn't have to worry about getting supper for the kids and Mike, and also to give Maddy and Major some time to play with Emma.

They've been through a lot lately, those little guys. Maddy overheard Heather's doctor talking to her about the surgery and was terrified of what it would mean - she's almost 10, and reaching the irrational tween stage. She was convinced that her mother was going to die. Just a few weeks ago, they had to move from the house Mike's family bought them when they got married into a rental on the other side of town, because they could no longer afford the mortgage. The kids have lived in that house their whole lives, so you can imagine how difficult its been for them.

They didn't lose the house due o an ARM or sudden loss of income. They lost the house because my sister refuses to work. She had a part-time job for a little bit that she referred to as "her home business" as a Quickbooks consultant, but the only time it paid anything was during the height of tax season. She tried to blame her health for her inability to work, but I happen to know a certain someone who is much more sick than my sister, and who manages to work much harder than Heather ever has in her entire life.

Fact of the matter is, my sister wants to have the best of everything and live the cliche suburban lifestyle. She wants to go to yoga and have coffee dates with her friends while the kids are at school. 2k-per-month Montessori school for my nephew, private christian school for my niece. She wants to be the president of the PTA and head up bake sales and charity fundraisers while maintaining her edginess. Edginess which she doesn't actually have, because she gets it from copycatting other people. She wanted all of this so badly that she sold her entire family down the river to keep up the image. Trips all over the country for weeks at a time with her blogger friends, long weekends away to "rejuvenate", the right car, the right cell phone, all the latest in material things.

Well, she cant keep up the image anymore. They're living in a very small, very sad little rental house. It's in a decent area, because Lockhart is so tiny that there really isn't a bad part of town. But it's too small for all of their things, has cheap, stained, rough commercial carpeting and virtually no windows. Overflowing cardboard boxes abound.

The kids don't care. They have their own rooms, their toys, their mom and dad. They're fed and warm and happy, and so it doesn't matter to them that they live in poorly refurbished officer's quarters trucked into town after Bergstrom AFB shut down in the mid-nineties. And that's good! Hopefully, this dose of reality will wake my sister and her husband up to what it's like to be grown-ups. Because I don't think they ever have been really and truly grown up before.

I know I sound gloaty. I'm fighting the urge to feel gloaty as well. Because my sister has always looked down her nose at me. She's always decided that she's better than I am because of the things she has that I don't have. And now, she doesn't have those things anymore. She's not stable like she used to be - or, at least, like she used to project herself to be. She's just like my mother with the fakeness and the self-serving instincts. Anything to make herself look good, and who cares what it does to anyone else?

As people go, I'm a better human being than she is. I've had a really hard go at life; something that my sister contributed greatly to. I've risen above it though, I'd like to think. I remember it, but I try never to use it to excuse or explain away bad behavior or poor judgment. I try to own my bad decisions, and not shunt off blame onto everyone else around me.

And here's the kicker. Now that my sister is getting a taste of how hard life can truly be, she's trying to ignore everything that she's ever done to me in the past and act like we're friends. I think she sees me a little bit more clearly now that she's no longer up there on her lofty perch, and I'm torn as to how to cope with it all. Part of me wants to take her hopefulness over a budding friendship with me and tell her to cram it up her ass sideways. She doesn't deserve to have me in her corner. She's spent the last 30 years trying to kill me, have me committed, take my baby, and when all else fails just lie her fucking face off to make me look bad.

She's never apologized for anything she's done to me, or even hinted at remorse. It's clear that she wants to just gloss over everything and pretend as though it never happened. I want Emma to have a good relationship with her cousins, and I know that I should be a grown up and let bygones be bygones, but I feel like she owes me. For all of the bruises, the broken bones, the destroyed spirit. For the awful names she used to call me, for the way she lied about me to sabotage my friendships and leave me isolated. For the things she's told her pathetic husband about me that have made him hate me without reason, for the way she'd wind Mother up and fuel that fire for her own gains; I feel she owes me at least an "I'm sorry for all that".

Is it wrong for me to want her to ask for my forgiveness? To indicate that she knows, on some level, that she was wrong for what she did? For what she was still doing up until about 6 months ago? Is it paranoid of me to feel that if she doesn't express remorse, then she'll just do it all again as soon as she rises back up? They don't parole convicts without a psych eval and confessions of regret. Is it wrong for me to be dubious? To expect that from her before allowing her in?

I don't know. Maybe I'll be the better person tomorrow. Right now, I feel like smirking knowingly to myself over the fact that she's been laid so low. It might make me a bad person, but right now it feels really really good.

Feeling neglected yet?

2010-10-19T18:55:00.000-07:00

How many of you remember when I was apologizing for not posting because things were so boring that there was nothing to post about? Well, feast or famine, guys - now I'm apologizing for neglecting you because there's so much to do.

We've finally gotten the hang of our schedules. I'm figuring out just how much I can manage to cram into my day without feeling completely drained, and have laid down the law. This was helped slightly by dad taking his yearly 2-week fishing vacation in Canada. Papaw and I found our groove while he was gone, and we are both committed to sticking to it. We enjoy our routine, and it really works for us. Papaw's got a whole new spring in his step now that he's found another way to be useful to the inner workings of the family.

That's one thing I've noticed about the elderly in the month I've been at Wellington, and I don't know how I never noticed it before. Many of our residents are either severely handicapped, living with dementia, or short-term rehab patients. But there are a few that are just too old to live alone, and who have come to Wellington to live out the rest of their days. Most of these people are easily depressed, and I've even heard a couple of them say "Well, what's the point?" when it's time for a shower or shave. So many of them have lost the will to stay vigorous, and it's because they have no responsibility. They've been the heads of their households for the majority of their lives, and now that no one needs them, they just stopped caring.

I'm working to fix this within The Home - I've started a plant-sitting service, and assigned various small and easy duties to the most hopeless residents. Little things like patrolling the front patio that they spend so much time sunning themselves on with the grabber arm, and picking up stray papers and cigarette butts when they see them. Or dusting off the blinds with the dusting stick. Or, for the more mobile residents that spend good portions of their days hovering around my desk grumping, taking the written phone messages around the corner to the business office and handing them off.

I have one resident who has adopted me as his girlfriend. We'll just call him Lothario. He's hilariously funny, and will offer to do anything "for just one dollar". He gets bored in the afternoons. It's too close to supper for him to be able to take a nap, but too long till his nightly dominoes game. I'll have to devote a long post to the times that Lothario and I have... he makes me laugh so hard. I wonder if I can even explain it fully. At any rate, when he gets bored, he gets mean. So in the afternoons, when shift-change happens at the nursing stations, I have a ton of paperwork that has to be shuttled between the halls. I give the papers to Lothario and we deliver them together. He feels useful, doesn't get bored, and everyone's day is happier.

My residents need this interaction. It reminds them that there is something going on that's bigger than they are, and that they're an important part of making life run smoothly. My designated plant-waterer, Mrs. Birch, apparently brags to her daughter about how important she is, because she's in charge of the plants in the lobby that "everybody sees". Her daughter thanked me profusely last Friday for giving her mom that job, because she was happier than she'd seen her in a long time. She said it was the first time that she'd been able to come for a visit without Mrs. Birch asking her when they were taking her home.

Their happiness and sense of importance makes me feel important, too. Last week was a nightmare. I'm having a hard time keeping a smile on my face on many days, because my boss - though he's very nice - is a complete joke. I had to give myself a pep talk to get out of bed today. But I knew that Lothario would be grumpy and mean all day long if there was nobody to push his chair through the hallways, delivering faxes. And Mrs. Birch might remember that she doesn't want to be there anymore if I wasn't there to dutifully hand her a bottle of water to use on the plants. Or Mr. Oiler might not get his sunscreen applied, and would sit out and cook himself again. Their needs keep me going.

I think it's the same thing for Papaw. He thrives on being needed. He's taken over keeping the kitchen tidy. "Well, I've got to take good care of my hard-working grand-daughter!" is what he'll say if you tell him to relax. He brags to his lady friends because I'm taking care of the "old folks", even though most of the "old folks" are significantly younger than he is. Today, I made split-pea soup in the crock pot for us to have for our supper, and I asked him to stir it a few times during the day, just to make sure it wasn't sticking to the bottom. He called me proudly four times today to announce that he'd stirred it.

I'm feeling good, he's feeling good, and we're both looking forward to the time that Dad moves back to Austin, because we get along so well together when it's just us. He's stopped blustering and being such a political jackass. I'm sure that, even in my exhaustion, I'm a better person to be around now that I'm working.

Oh, and Emma? She's moved up to her age-appropriate class, has two little girls that she's best friends with, and wants to go to "skoo" even on the weekends. On Saturday morning, when she wakes up, she gets her shoes and shoves them in my face, insisting that it's time to "gogogo". She just loves her daycare. No crying, and no more stress. I tried the suggestion that I had in the comments about how to ease her anxiety over being the last kid standing in the evenings, and it totally worked. Emma loves M&Ms, so we bought a bag of fun-size packets, and I sent some to daycare with her for eating only when she's the last one left. There are never tears anymore. I can't recall who it was that suggested I do that, but BRAVO to you. It completely fixed her anxiety. I can't thank you enough!

And that, as they say, is the rest of the story

2010-10-04T21:51:00.000-07:00

Right, so I don't have a ton of time or energy, and this post may well be riddled with grammar and spelling errors, but I wanted to give another update on the whole full-time job thing. Especially since the last post I put up had me questioning my drive to go back to work.

I love my job.

After the fiasco that was my second day, I took the weekend to regroup, kiss on my baby girl, and gear myself up to go at it again. When Sandy and Rory asked me on Monday how I was doing, and if I felt like I was settling in, I was honest. I told them that I thought the people were great, but I felt like I was floundering. That I was afraid of making bad habits because I didn't know any better, and that I really felt like I needed more training before I would be able to feel anything but overwhelmed and anxious all day. They were very receptive and positive about it - they both apologized for the lack of training and agreed that it was no way to get things started. I felt listened to, which helped to make me feel better.

We formulated a plan. They would give me as much information as I felt I could hold, and to guard against things falling through the cracks, I told them that I would write down questions that occurred to me each day, if they would promise me a few minutes before they left for the day to address those questions. They both agreed and have stuck to that agreement, so I feel satisfied. I no longer feel like I'm being thrown to the wolves.

Things still get insane. At at least one point in the day, the phone will just explode with calls for about 20 minutes solid. It never fails that this happens when I've got my entire desk covered in admission packets or discharge papers, or I've got a family coming in for a tour and Q&A, or a resident is asking me a question which, to them, is always a matter of life and death. These things are stressful, but they're also part of the job. It's not more than I can handle.

At first, Rory would get incredibly concerned, afraid I was going to snap and walk out, or be horrible to someone, and would come rushing over to help. His flapping hands and constant vigilance, though well intentioned, just made things worse. It's taking him some time to understand that I'm alright, I'm cool and calm, and that I can handle these floods without a problem. Often, when it happens now, I'll be in the middle of putting out fires, and I'll hear his very concerned voice in my radio earpiece asking if I need help. I'm glad to say that the answer so far has been a very collected "No thanks. I'm on top of things," and it's the truth.

The residents are a total hoot. I need to write a post about their antics, because they're really the best part of my day. I love every one of them. Particularly the really odd ones. It's like I'm in some kind of book, because they are all total characters.

Emma had a really rough time in her first full week at daycare. She got to the point where she would run and hide when it was time to pack into the car int he mornings. It's not the people, because once she got there, she was alright, I think she's just like her Mama - an anxiety-ridden worrywart. The anticipation is always worse than the reality. But it led to her refusing to eat their food and taking only very short cat-naps in the afternoons.

But, today we bumped her up to the 2-3 year old class, and I'll tell you, it was like a whole new kiddo. She's very shy around the other kids, but she didn't cling to me, and she didn't cry at all this morning. She ate pancakes, which have long been her mortal enemy, and slept through her whole naptime. She gets horrible anxiety in the afternoons as the other kids leave, though. I'm sure she thinks that nobody is going to come pick her up. It breaks my heart that she's always the last one out the door in the evenings, but what can I do? Those are my hours. She'll learn eventually. We'll always come get her at the end of the day.

On the subject of the other blog, I'm still working on transcribing everything that I've written in the last week - it's what I do in my slow time at work these days - but I have a complete post scheduled to go up on Wednesday, and I'm 90% through editing a second one. Once that's done, I'll schedule it to auto-post for next week. Hopefully, this will keep me ahead of the game, and there won't be anymore dead weeks.

Adjustments are happening, things are progressing, and I get my first paycheck on Thursday. So far, so good.

A slight change of plans...

2010-09-30T18:13:00.000-07:00

So, the cold I've been fighting all week long finally got its hooks in me last night, and I woke up at 4 in the morning with a raging fever. I took some Tylenol to try and get it to break before time to go to work, but no dice. I was raging at 102 when my alarm went off. So, I took Emma to school, called in sick, and went home to sleep.

I took more medicine and trashed out hard until 3:45, when I woke up in a pool of sweat. Mission accomplished, fever broken. Tomorrow, I go back to work.

But, as I sat and ate a peanut butter sandwich and watched CSI Miami reruns with Papaw before we went to pick Emma up, we had a little chat. Mainly about Dad and his ridiculous tantrum last night after I asked him to start loading the dishwasher in the evenings. Papaw says that he feels responsible for everyone's situation - my feeling stuck, Dad's bad attitude. He says that he feels like he never should have asked Mother to move in after Meme died.

I quickly shot that down. I told him that Mother and Dad are adults, perfectly capable of making their own choices. All he did was tell them that there was a place for them to be if they wanted it. I remember the conversation. I was sitting in the room when it happened the Easter after Meme passed.

Mother and Dad were talking about the problems they were having with the apartment complex they were living in, and Dad said that he wished they could afford to live somewhere else, because they were both unhappy where they were. Dad was driving an hour through stacked traffic from one end of town to the other to get to work, Mother felt isolated in an area full of people nothing like her (sound familiar?). So Papaw said that there was plenty of room for them here, if they would like to come keep him company.

Mother and dad talked about it and decided it was the best idea. Dad wasn't exactly stoked about the plan, but he did more than just go along with it. They were fully moved in by June.

I told Papaw that they were both adults, who had made the choice to take him up on his offer freely. He didn't pull a switcheroo on them - the offer he made was exactly what they got. If Dad is unhappy now, it's his own damn fault, not Papaw's. He shouldn't feel like he caused any trouble.

Then I come to find that Mother has been lying her face off to Papaw whenever he goes up to Dallas to visit her. He's expressed his feelings of guilt, has told her that he feels like it's his fault that Dad's miserable, and her response has been that the reason Dad stays here is because of Papaw. I'd like to strangle her. How dare she lie to him to cover her ass! She doesn't want to have to come clean about the fact that she's effectively left Dad. She doesn't want to tell him about the divorce, because she knows exactly how it'll look.

I wanted to smack her in her teeth. But I can't, and Papaw gets very protective and defensive when someone badmouths Mother, so I had to bite my tongue. I didn't want to start a fight, and I wasn't out to make Papaw feel any worse than Mother already had.

I told him that first of all, the reason Dad was still here and hadn't moved back to Austin wasn't because he felt a debt to Papaw, but because he had promised me that he wouldn't move back until I was moved out in my own place. Which is absolutely true. I also told him that Dad loved Papaw, and wanted to make sure that he was taken care of. It wasn't Papaw's "fault" that Dad was here. It was because of a promise Dad had made to me, and also in large part owed to the fact that he probably couldn't afford to move back to Austin, because he was still supporting Mother, and she's incredibly expensive.

And that was when I tattled. I lied a little... allowed Mother the chance to come clean on her own, when the issue inevitably arose. I could have sold her out completely, but in this instance, it wouldn't have made things any better, and just would have hurt Papaw in a very deep way. So instead, I told him that I had a feeling that Mother was in the midst of leaving Dad. That I noticed a lot of the same red flags that I've seen before, all of the other times that she's ready to leave a marriage that had exhausted its usefulness to her. He asked what I meant, and I was as delicate as I could be.

I told him that when Mother was here for Emma's birthday, she had asked me if I was planning on going back to dating now that I was working, and that I had told her no. That I didn't feel like there was such a person as what I was looking for, and that frankly, I didn't feel like wasting my time with my search. They just don't make men like that anymore. Mother had said she felt the same way. That story was the unvarnished truth.

I told him that I was suspicious of Mother's reasons for staying in Dallas all the time. That she often called and told me how much she misses Emma, but always resisted invitations to come back to spend time with her, even when she had no classes or work or studying to do. I told him that I didn't see why she wasn't doing her internship with Scaniel-Harper, the funeral home here in town that had prompted all of this ridiculousness in the first place. I told him that I had no confirmation from Mother or Dad, but that I smelled divorce.

I don't think it came as much of a surprise to Papaw. At least, he really didn't seem shocked.

But the truth of the matter is that there are a number of very unhappy people living in this house, and we all have relatively easy fixes for the unhappiness. So, we devised a plan between the two of us. Tonight, I'll talk to Dad and find out if he's in a financial position to be able to support himself if he wanted to move back to Austin right away (like, in the next month or so). If the answer is yes, then I'll tell him that Papaw and I have discussed it, and we both feel that if he would be happier in Austin, then he should go ahead and move back.

And therein lies the change of plans. Papaw wants to sell the house, and without some financial help, he can't get all the bills paid comfortably. In order for the house to sell, it needs some help. It's still got the same carpet it had when they bought it 30 years ago, the appliances are original and horribly outdated, the cabinetry in the kitchen needs refinishing. Tonight, I'm going to discuss things with Dad, and if he wants to move back to Austin, he's free to go. Papaw will move back into the master bedroom, and we'll clear his office out, moving everything into the back room. I'll take the bedroom he's in now, Emma will make the office her bedroom, and I'll take over the bills that Dad was paying.

And this is how we'll live for a little bit. It will give Papaw the financial cushion to do some updating to the house and get it sold, while making Emma and I more comfortable while we save up. Since Papaw is going to be seriously downsizing when he moves into his eventual apartment, we're going to start getting rid of the furniture that he doesn't want: the worn-out couch I'm sleeping on right now, the old organ that doesn't quite work anymore, the various hutches and credenzas that have been accumulated through the years that none of the family has laid claim to.

And as the extras empty out, I'll accumulate my things... the stuff that I'm going to need when I move into my own place. And I'll build, and Papaw will cull, and this is how we'll move forward.

It's not ideal. I would rather have my own place completely. Papaw would rather move directly into an apartment and just be done with the expense of home ownership. I could blinker myself and refuse to acknowledge the issues that are so obvious, but then I'd be my mother. This isn't total happiness for anyone, but at least it's something tolerable.

I know that I could ignore it and go my own way, and Papaw would never hold it over me, but I can't. That's the kind of selfishness that Mother is notorious for, and I just couldn't live with myself besides. At least this way, I can look at myself in the mirror.

Oh, and as an aside? I've lost 8 pounds.

This is worse than daylight saving time

2010-09-29T21:34:00.000-07:00

This adjustment period feels neverending. I feel like I have so little time at home after I make it home. And that time is spent cleaning up after the other two perfectly capable adults that live in this house. Which... can I just throw a little bit of a fit over here for a second? I spent 2 hours in the kitchen after i got home from work emptying the dishwasher, throwing away trash, emptying the overfull garbage can in the dumpster in the alley, and cooking dinner. All the while tripping over Emma who was trying so hard to get some attention from her Mama that she was literally climbing up my leg.

I got flustered. I already have 15 people pulling me in every direction at work every day. I shouldn't have to come home and deal with that too. So I yelled that someone had better get off their asses and come either finish cooking dinner, or entertain Emma for a few minutes so that I could cook. Dad huffed in as though I'd just asked him to move a fucking mountain. At dinner, I said "Here's the deal. There are three adults in this household, and three jobs that I'm spending all of my time doing: Cleaning the kitchen, cooking, and cleaning the kitchen again. So each of us should be doing one of those jobs. If you guys want me to keep cooking every night, then someone needs to make sure the dishwasher is empty every evening before I start cooking, and someone else needs to be in charge of loading it and starting it up before they go to bed, because I'm not doing all of it anymore. It was one thing when I was home and had all day long to do everything, but now I'm at work, and I refuse. Your other choice is that I stop cooking. I'd be glad to shop for a month's worth of TV dinners for you all."

Dad now refuses to speak to me.

I fail to see how I'm in the wrong on this one. Back when I was still looking for work, we discussed this. I told them that I wasn't going to keep doing everything for them when I went back to work, and they seem to have forgotten that they both promised to do their part. Though, I have to pause in my bitching to say that Papaw immediately promised to be in charge of emptying the dishwasher, and said that the only reason he hadn't started doing that was because he thought that Emma and I were having fun emptying the dishwasher together every night. And we are, but I just don't have the time and energy to do it all.

But Val, you might be saying. When you and Emma move out on your own, you'll have to do all of that and more. No, not really. There's a huge difference between cooking for one and cooking for three. Plus, Dad and Papaw have a bitch-fit if dinner comes much later than 7:30. And also, I don't like eating the stuff that they want to eat. Give me some kind of chicken and pasta deal, and I'm a happy girl. Or a stir-fry. Or cheesy rice. All of it infinitely simpler and less messy than what I'm doing now. And, you know what? Sometimes I just want to eat a bologna sandwich and watch cartoons.

Ugh. I'm tired. I had some stuff ready in my head to write about work... keep everybody updated. I'll try to find the time to write tomorrow.

The other blog is going to be sporadic with the updates. I've started writing at work in the down time that I have there, and then I bring the pages home with me to transcribe. But so far, I have a bunch of pages, and no transcription. That might have to happen over the weekend, so it's probably going to be a down week. Sorry guys. :(

Back to the Daily Grind

2010-09-26T10:49:00.000-07:00

I feel like things are never going to fall into a routine. Which is stupid, I know, because they absolutely will. In fact, once I get into the new habit of going to work every day, there will be a better routine than ever before.

Emma is doing pretty well with daycare. We started her out in the younger kids' class - the 1-2 year olds - that only has four other kids in it, and they're all around 12-15 months old. The plan is to start easing her into the 2 and 3 year old class once she's gotten accustomed to being away from Mommy every day. The classrooms are next door to one another, with a dutch door connecting them, so we're going to start her in the little kids' class in the morning, and then swap her to the other class in the afternoons. Once she's solid on that schedule, she'll start going to her age appropriate class.

I want to take her teacher with us in the switch.

Tanna is such a sweetheart. She just loves Emma, and she's really very good with her. She's patient and ready with the hugs. Emma seems to like her, and she's learned three new words in just the two days that she's been in daycare. Well... two and a half. She knows that kitties say meow, and she learned the word "kick", and she's finally starting to "close" her words. She had gotten really good at saying the first part of the word, but wouldn't say the second half, but since she's been with Tanna, she very carefully adds the "r" at the end of car, and the "l" in the middle of color. I'm impressed.

Leaving her is tough in the mornings. The first day she was happy, and didn't mind me leaving. She started getting agitated at the end of the day when the other kids were leaving, and she was still left behind. Because of my hours, she's usually the last one to go at the end of the day and that worries her. The second day, she was stoked to get up and get dressed and leave for the day, but once we pulled up in front of the daycare center and I hopped out to pull her from her car seat, I could hear her saying very quietly, "No. No. No no no." And it made me feel bad.

She didn't throw a fit, though, and was very happy to go around showing me all of her favorite toys in her classroom. But she cried when I left and clung to me, and that just broke my heart. She had a good day after she'd calmed down, but still.

She won't eat her lunches at daycare, and I'm not surprised. She only loves fish sticks, and when she's anxious or upset, she doesn't wan to eat anything at all. So, I sent some fish sticks with her on Friday, plus some pop tarts and graham crackers. I want her to learn to eat and enjoy other food, but at the same time, I'm terrified that she'll go back to refusing food altogether. And she's already so slender - I'm just not comfortable letting her be hungry all day until she relents and eats. So, until she's taking her full nap and letting me leave without anxiety, I'll be sending her lunch along.

Onward to my work.

Thursday was fantastic. Everybody was so excited to have me there - and genuinely, not just saying they were glad. I really felt welcome. I spent Thursday following Sandy around, because she's the one that I'll be working with most often. We went all over town to both the main hospital, the VA hospital, and several recovery clinics talking to people who are thinking of transferring to our facility. It was good, because I need to be in on the admissions process from start to finish in order to effectively do my job. This kind of shadowing gave me the chance to see what kind of questions I'm likely to get from people touring the facility. It also gave me the chance to get to know the person who is ostensibly my boss. I left at the end of the day with horribly sore feet and a real sense of excitement about going back to work.

That didn't last long. Friday was a nightmare. When I was offered the job, I was promised that there would be several days of training before I was left to my own devices. I was sure to tell Sandy how glad I was to hear that, because poor training means that I start making habits of doing things wrong, and that's really tough to correct. Plus, it makes me look like an incompetent moron who doesn't take direction well. Guess what happened on Friday!

They parked me at the receptionist's desk (which will be my station) and then everybody left. They never told me how to work the phones, where to distribute mail, who regular visitors were, where to find job applications and who to give them to when the numerous walk-in applicants were finished with them. I got griped at for not moving the wet floor sign fast enough after the morning mopping, and for not offering drinks to people that ignored me completely when I greeted them. Unbeknownst to me, my phone was on mute so I couldn't hear it ringing, and when I asked for help on how to transfer calls and what they would like the greeting to be when I answered the phone, I was told to "just push the help button on the phone".

I'm pretty pissed. Of course, I'm going to go back on Monday. Not working simply isn't an option. I looked for work for so long before finding this job... quitting isn't an option. I'll tough it out. I'll make it work. But now I'm enveloped in this dense blanket of dread whenever I think about going back.

I want to tell them how betrayed I feel that they did the exact opposite of what was promised to me. How resentful I feel toward them for expecting me to automatically know the faces of people I've never seen before and which resident they're there to visit. How unprepared they left me feeling, and how embarrassed and stressed out it made me to be abandoned, alone and untrained, and yet expected to instantly fall into lockstep with the patterns of the office. Quite frankly, they aren't paying me enough to expect the sort of spontaneous brilliance they seem to want.

I want to tell them all of these things, but I don't know how to do that without either bursting into tears and making an ass of myself, or getting angry and saying regretful things. But, this is the only chance I have to make those feelings known. Here, upfront, at the beginning. I feel that if I sit on these feelings, I forfeit the right to be upset because I didn't speak up or stand up for myself. I need this job. I want to work. But I want to work in an environment where I feel like promises are kept, and I'm a valued part of the team, and I just don't feel that way. Is that too much to ask?

Superfast update

2010-09-21T17:10:00.000-07:00

I started to post this in the comments, but then I thought it might not get seen, so I'm giving it a post of its own.

I haven't started the job yet. Monday I went in to do the obligatory drug testing and background check paperwork, which took about an hour. I did a tour, met the head nurse and a few other people, and discovered that our Administrator is a total cut-up - the dry, sarcastic kind, where you can't always tell if they're joking or not (Shekky, do you remember Cory Zass and Hans Dahl from that crappy insurance company we used to work for? If they made a baby, it would be Rory). I love people like that, so I'm kinda stoked about it.

I heard back from Wellington about an hour and a half ago to tell me that everything had come through just fine, and to cement the start date. Tomorrow, I go turn in Emma's daycare paperwork (and gift her teacher with A Guide to Emma, which I've been typing up for a little bit. Because my kid is weird, and nobody should have to dive into that action unprepared). I'm also going to see about getting my go-fast hair again, and then give myself a long-awaited treat. I've really wanted to go tour the units over at the apartments I've chosen, but I didn't want to do it until I had a job. But now, I've got to get serious about saving money, and in order to do that appropriately, I need to measure the space, so I know how to fill it.

Thursday is my first official day, and it's going to be hella-busy. I'll go extra-early to Emma's daycare, so that I can get her settled in before I leave her for the day (I foresee lots of tears, and I don't think they'll all be hers). I'll go into the office at 9 and be dumped automatically into the weekly directors meeting, and then go to the end-of-month staff meeting at 10. There will be a world of paperwork, and my boss Sandy has promised me a ton of stuff to take home for study. I'll spend several days shadowing various people through admissions and the rest of their daily activity, taking notes and getting a good handle on what exactly everyone does.

Then, after probably a week of that, I'll be on my own to do my thing. I'm kind of running the gamut of emotions right now. I'm excited and terrified, nervous, a little bit depressed about sending Emma to daycare, and all sorts of other feelings. Pretty much, if there's an emotion, I'm feeling it in some measure. I haven't worked in 2 years, y'all. The prevailing emotions are panic and elation. I don't see myself doing much in the way of sleeping the next couple of nights.

Birthdays come but once a year....

2010-09-19T16:43:00.000-07:00

... and thank the Universe for that, because I don't think I could handle this more often.

As with any birthday party, there were a rash of small disappointments for me that nobody else would ever notice, and Emma couldn't have cared less about. I'll whine about them briefly now.

My brother pulled a midnight move to Houston without telling anyone, so my littlest nephew wasn't at the party. His wife had decided that she wants Landon to be closer to her side of the family than our side, so she quit her job (she's the breadwinner) and got a new one down in the Houston area without discussing it with my brother, and then announced tat her cousin had found them a house to move into, and it would be ready in a week. Instead of putting his foot down and telling her to shove it, my brother did what he always does, and that is avoid conflict at all costs, no matter who it damages.

No one but Mother knew about this until Papaw called my brother and asked if they were going to be coming to Emma's birthday party. Then he yelled at him for almost an hour and told him that Nicole was no longer welcome in his house. On the one hand, I'm glad that someone other than me was finally honest with my brother about how they feel about Nicole, but on the other hand, I'll probably never see my nephew again. There's more drama involving them, but this is the wrong post to gossip about it. I'll bring it up next time.

My sister (who also has a bunch of dirty laundry that I have no qualms at all about airing in another post) was off in another state with her friends, so her kids, Emma's favorite people in the whole entire world, weren't there either. She never even bothered telling me that they wouldn't be coming.

I was incredibly disappointed, to say the least, but thankful that a) Emma is too little to know that she got dissed, and b) next year, we won't have this problem, because she'll have a bunch of little friends from daycare to fill out the ranks when her aunt and uncle behave like typical selfish assholes.

The park was incredibly full yesterday, which is unusual for that park, but not a catastrophe. The parking lot was full, which caused some very minor issues, but there was plenty of room for our tiny little party. As always happens, things were forgotten. Dad forgot the plastic cups when he ran inside to grab a butter knife, set them down on the kitchen counter, and then left with the knife, but not the cups. I decided at the last second that I was going to make deviled eggs, and as a result, I forgot to bring the mustard and mayo for the hot dogs. I'm realistic. I know that no party can ever go off without a hitch, and if those were the only problems we had, then that's a bbq I can call successful.

My uncle Rob and Aunt Nona turned up unexpectedly, which was a very nice surprise, and Rob saved the day by making a run for cups, so we wouldn't all die of thirst. Papaw brought his sweetheart, Margaret, and this was my first time meeting her. He's been trying to talk her into marrying him for the last 6 months or so, and she's been resisting. I've been with her on the resistance because I don't want another grandmother, but I think I'm going to have to switch sides. She's fantastic.

Emma had a blast. She played on the playground for a little bit, then got distracted by the swings. I pushed her on the swings for a minute, until she decided they were too scary, and then Mother took her down to the splashpad while we got the hot dogs on the grill.

I don't have many pictures, because Mother was in charge of taking them so that I could deal with everything else, and she spent most of her time talking about herself to people. She did the same thing last year, so I can only blame myself for being dumb enough to give her the same job twice. But we did get a few pictures.

The cake. I can't believe I got it to the park without losing a single butterfly.

This was right before she announced that she was done.

She got a puppy dog that sings "Do Your Ears Hang Low" and dances from my aunt and uncle. She's terrified of it.

Her favorite present came from me. A toy drum, tambourine, set of maracas, and little plastic recorder/flute.

All in all, it was a good day. Everybody came home completely exhausted and mildly windburned, and Emma got all kinds of awesome stuff. Not pictured (Thanks, Mother): a huge orange Dr. Seuss creature that I don't know the name of, but which Emma just loves, a bunch of clothes and a set of jammies from her Pop, a purple butterfly shirt from the Dallas aquarium from Mother, some socks, some new shoes, some little Levi's jeggings that may be the cutest things I've ever seen from Margaret, and two Word World DVDs from her Papaw. My brother promised to buy her a ton of books as an act of contrition for being a douche canoe.

I'll try to post tomorrow and let you all know how things go with the new job. We didn't get paperwork and whatnot done on Friday, because Sandy was swamped, so we'll go through all of that on Monday at 11.

Hmm... so this is what it feels like

2010-09-16T18:59:00.000-07:00

I'd almost forgotten. It's been so long since I had a job.

That's right. I have a job. They called me a couple of hours after my interview today to tell me that I was their top choice, and to ask me to come work for them. So now I feel like I can tell everybody what the job is... can't really jinx it now, can I?

I'll be working with a local long-term care and inpatient physical rehab facility as the Hospitality Coordinator. Basically, when new or prospective patients and residents come to the facility, it will be my job to take their families through orientation. I'll do tours, answer questions, and get them started on some of the enrollment paperwork. I'll also be checking their Medicaid and Medicare eligibilities.

The hours are great - 9-6, Monday through Friday. And while the pay is really scrawny, I'll have the chance to revisit the salary arrangement after a few months of probation, which is very normal for this part of the woods. Plus, I'll have full healthcare coverage, as well as vision and dental coverage, which is virtually unheard of these days. The last time I had health insurance, I was in high school. The cost has been prohibitive since then.

Tomorrow I go in and do paperwork and take a drug test. I'm pretty certain that I'll start on Monday.

Also, I just remembered today that I haven't posted anything to Written in the Cracks this week. Saturday is Emma's birthday party, and I've been scrambling to get everything done - like, we're talking sweat-shopping with the gum paste butterflies for her cake. Tomorrow is a hella-busy day for us, and Saturday will be, too, so I'll try to update on Sunday. I haven't had the chance to do any writing this past week, so I've only got a couple of pages ready for posting. Bear with me, guys.

Are you the one?

2010-09-15T08:25:00.000-07:00

I just got a call-back for the mystery job. Second round of interviews is tomorrow at one Cross those fingers.

In other news, I have no air conditioning. It's 10:30 in the morning, and 85 degrees in my house. Emma is being a good little trooper, but I have a feeling that as the temperature climbs, patience will wear thin. We've got all the ceiling fans and oscillating fans in the house on, but my skin feels like I've got a sunburn.

The unit was 30 years old... it was its time. It crapped out on us yesterday, and the repairman has a new one on order that he says should come in today. He's hoping to get it installed today, too, so while you're crossing your fingers for Mystery Job, keep them crossed for cold air, too.

UPDATE: If the fingers that are crossed for this job work as well as the fingers that were crossed for cold air, I'll be employed by Monday.

Less than 15 minutes after I put this post up, the AC guy came. The temperature in the house managed to creep up to 90 before they got the new outdoor unit installed, but it's in now, it's blowing hard, and we'll all be cooled down to normal in no time. Emma can finally nap.

Funny quote of the day: "I did something last night that I've never done before in my whole life. I slept with nothing but the sheet on, and I think I'll do it always now!" - Papaw's announcement, as he handed me pudding cups that he hijacked from the senior center. Incredible.

Black Toledo Sage

2010-09-14T11:52:00.000-07:00

There. I wrote it down. I had to, you see, because apparently, black Toledo sage was some sort of quest item in my dreams last night, the most precious of all things. I had to track it down, DaVinci Code style, and save its preciousness from some nefarious do-badders. I woke up repeating it to myself, because it was imperatie that I not forget it. Sleepytime Brain had convinced me that this was the most important substance that anyone had ever known, and no matter what, I had to remember it. I even googled it, just in case it was a real thing and my brain was trying to inform me of an excellent get-rich-quick scheme as I slept. It does that sometimes. Communicates brilliance to me while I sleep.

But, more often than not, it just makes me repeat words over and over again, until I wake up and that's all I can think about, and I'm convinced that it's some kind of fantastic new thing, only to discover that it's just some dream nonsense and I look like an ass. Or, I make the mistake of telling someone about the time that I dreamt about a giant rotating almond, hovering in space while a disembodied voice shouted "Judy Dench!" at me, and they decide I'm insane.

Once, while I slept, I had this amazing dream about looking for something at an old abandoned carnival, and there were clowns and Robert Downey Jr., and hijinks, and bitingly witty sarcastic commentary so awesome it left you breathless, and it was incredible! And when I woke up, I was convinced that this was the best mystery novel of ever, and that I had to write down the storyline before it escaped my brain, so that I could write the book and make so much money that JK Rowling would cry about how broke she was compared to me. Then, as I woke up fully, mid-write-down, I realized that I'd rolled over on my remote control and turned on the TV and was just having a weird dream heavily influenced by an episode of Phineas and Ferb.

Fuck you, Sleepytime Brain. You're an asshole. Black Toledo Sage, indeed.

A Winnar is You!

2010-09-12T21:16:00.000-07:00

Well, you guys really took it down to the wire on the guessing game. Granted, in the end I had to give some nudges in the right direction, but nevertheless.... WE HAVE A WINNER!

Witchypoo made the correct guess. In the list of things that I want, the thing I actually didn't want was the painting of the tree. Not because it's a bad painting, or because it isn't pretty... it's just so lonely looking. And lonely-looking trees aren't in my design scheme. Travelocity gnomes and hot pink velvet footstools, however, totally are. Because I'm mildly insane, you see.

So, Witchypoo! Send me an email (cookielass24@gmail.com) and give me your mailing address, and also let me know what kind of embroidery you'd like. Something I've already done and taken pictures of here? Something else? Framed? A pillow? A handbag? Serious? Quirky? Random grab-bag choice? Do tell.

Oh, be still my heart

2010-09-12T10:07:00.000-07:00

I knew it was coming. I have this day marked on a calendar. It's more important to me than my own birthday, plus maybe Christmas. It's the best gift that I've been given in several years.

It's Paul Bettany as Priest.

I don't know if I'll be able to make it through this movie without having to excuse myself. (can I also point out that I spit coffee on myself when I watched this trailer because as Christopher Plummer says "Stripped from the order" they close up on his shirtlessness. Then I started giggling uncontrollably for the rest of the trailer. I'm a fangirl. I'm not ashamed! Stop judging me.)

I finally figured it out!

2010-09-10T13:21:00.000-07:00

I knew there was a name for the style I've been digging, but I couldn't think of what it was. I've been calling it shabby chic, but that's not really what it is. It's a mixture of shabby chic, with a little bit of upscale country, plus vintage, and found objects.... eclectic and romantic and odd and luxe. Not having a label to slap on it to guide my searches has really been making me insane. Because that's part of who I am, that insanely neurotic borderline-OCD organizer. EVERYTHING CAN BE LABELED! EVERYTHING MUST HAVE A LABEL!

I found my label, and that label is cottage chic. I feel relief.

Also, I'm feeling a little bit let down, you guys. I thought I'd get some response from y'all on the last post, and I haven't really heard anything from anyone, and that makes me feel stabby.

So, this happened today...

2010-09-08T21:43:00.000-07:00

I had a surprise job interview today. I've started applying for anything that I'm even remotely qualified for or interested in, regardless of whether or not it meets the pay grade I need. Now, my requirements consist of two questions: will it pay for Emma's daycare, and will I be able to set some cash aside. Even doing this, I'm lucky if I find 3 things to apply for in a week, and I almost never get a callback. But today, I sent in a resume and got an email within about 20 minutes asking to call in and schedule an interview.

Out of sheer superstition, I'm not going to outline the job, and I'm not going to go into any kind of detail on the interview. Maybe if I shut up and keep it to myself, this one will pan out. I will say, though, that I feel like I really nailed the interview, and by mid-week next week, I should know if I got a second interview. On the up side, the job is something I'd be good at, the location is great, and the benefits are incredible (vision and dental at 100%? Don't mind if I do!). On the down side, the money is pretty crappy, though the woman I interviewed with assured me that there was room to go up after a few months of employment. I can work with that.

So, to distract myself from the anxiety of waiting, I've gone back to decorating the imaginary apartment.

This time, I started looking at dinnerware. Now, technically speaking, I have some dishes that Papaw gave me, but they're vintage, and not really meant for everyday use. They're more of a special-occasions-only sort of set, though if I were being totally picky and whiny about choosing my everyday set of dishes, I could probably use them for a week or two, if I was careful. But, that won't be necessary, because I found this:


BIRDIES!

I love them. These are the dishes for me. They also began to inspire the rest of the living area.

Here is the table I'm after:

It extends to an oval that seats 6, and the extra leaf is hidden under the tabletop. I'm planning to paint it and distress it. I'm going to do a messy undercoat of orangey-red and the dark teal from the plates, and then cover it over with black enamel, and either crackle-finish it so that the undercoat shows through, or distress the edges. I haven't chosen chairs, but I'm probably going to make them intentionally mismatched, and paint them the same high-gloss black.

I'm still stuck for a sofa. I haven't found one that I really like the lines of since the last one I loved was discontinued. I'm unconcerned with the upholstery, because I know I'll just end up re-covering it in something else. And what else might that be? Well, are any of you familiar with Betsey Johnson? If you're not, go ahead and give her a Google. I'll wait.

See how she's like Barbie on crack? Take her style and dial it back a baby-step or two, and there you have what I'm looking for. I also took some looks at the Bed, Bath, and Beyond website, and I've found a surprising amount of wall art to be inspired by. Way more than I'd found for the previous plan.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, here are 25 objects that I intend to own. I'm joking about one of them. If you can guess which one (and tell me why you think it's the one), I'll send you some embroidery.

So piratey, this octopus hook. YARR!

I like to think that I am often unique and magnifique

Believe in the wonders of tomorrow

Sometimes the heart should do things without the brain's permission

Spread your wings and learn to fly

I feel that this should live in my bedroom, perhaps. It's sparkly.

I SHALL NAME HIM GNOMEO!

Lord knows I need to learn these lessons.

GAME ON!

Goddammit, phone, RING!

2010-09-03T11:34:00.000-07:00

If I don't get a phone call form the HR department a Scott and White by the end of business today, then I didn't get the job. They're closed on Monday for the holiday, and training classes start on Tuesday. And I'll be honest, guys... I don't know what I'm going to do if I didn't get it. There is no work in this town, but I have no choices. I have to stay here. There's no way out.

I apply for everything that I see that has even the slightest hope of being able to support Emma and I - even things that I'm only vaguely qualified for. And in the few instances where I've gotten a callback, they always say the same thing "We got almost 100 applications today!!" and I just can't seem to make the cut.

I'm falling into a pretty deep depression now. Dad's divorcing Mother, which will mean that he'll be moving back to Austin once it's done. They plan to divorce in February, because that's when some insurance plan that he buys into comes into effect, which will somehow pay for the divorce. And I know it seems like a lot of time between now and February, but it's not when you don't have a job. Time keeps passing, Emma's speech and social skills are way behind other kids her age, and I don't have any hope at all for work. I can't just go get a waitressing job or something, because there is no one to take care of Emma, and there are no daycares here for odd hours.

I take that back. There's one, but they're 2 warnings away from losing their state licensing for things like kids running out of the play area, and into oncoming traffic. Oh, and a violation for two of the daycare workers literally fucking each other in front of a room full of 4 year olds.

Because I literally have nothing to my name other than some clothes that don't fit and furniture for Emma's bedroom, its going to take me months to save up enough to be able to give us a real home. Time is running out, and I just don't know what to do. I'm seriously losing it here. I've gotten to the point where the depression is real, and I'm starting to cry for no obvious reason the instant I'm alone in a room. Because if people are around, I have to paint on a happy face. Their answer to my feelings is always "God will provide! It's all part of a master plan!"

Fuck that bullshit noise. I feel like I'm constantly 30 seconds away from going on a killing spree. I don't have any reserves left. I was running on fumes already when Emma was born, and I've barely hung on through the last two years. Something's got to give, and I'm starting to become really afraid that it's going to be me.

Forever Young

2010-09-01T10:40:00.000-07:00

I had an extremely interesting conversation with Dad and Papaw over dinner last night. Today was grocery day, and the usual dinner conversation on the day before grocery day is a rundown of what I plan to buy. Mainly because Dad gets paid once a month, and I have to buy the entire month's supply of almost everything in that one trip. And to avoid the afternoon rush, I always do my shopping in the mid-morning, during the week, which means dad is never there. Although, now that I think about it, I don't think he'd be there even if I went shopping while he was home.

At any rate, I was going over the shopping list, adding everyone's grocery requests, and Papaw asked if we could please switch from cream peanut butter to smooth. I don't have a preference,and dad doesn't really "do" peanut butter, so of course, I agreed. Then I said, "But I thought that the peanut pieces in the chunky were too hard for you to chew with your dentures. That's why I've been getting the creamy kind."

"Oh, no," Papaw said. "That was your Meme that couldn't eat the chunky kind. But I love it! Makes me feel like a little kid!" And that was when Papaw took me through the evolution of peanut butter as he had known it. Now, that sounds ridiculously boring, I'm sure, to a lot of people, and I don't blame you. Unless you know what a wild history Papaw had in his youth, it's a boring story. But he's kind of a historical figure, I guess you could say. He's been present during tons of the interesting history of mid-century America.

Papaw was born in Pasadena California, the youngest of seven boys. As he refers to it, "I was the family girl," because he did all of the helping of his mother around the house (to this day, he helps me with my quilting. He used to be the one who sat under the quilting frame at his mother's quilting bees and push the needle back up. I don't need that now, because I have a lap-frame, but we do it anyway. He loves it, and so do I. It's a unique memory that nobody else in the family will ever share). His father was the minister of music at a small Methodist church, but his day job was playing the trombone at Warner Brothers studios, for the cartoon soundtracks. Papaw's first memory of peanut butter (which he remembers as more of an extra crunchy kind) was sitting having a big glass of milk and a Skippy sandwich (a new trend) beside the pool at Mel Blanc's house. You know. Bugs Bunny. Yeah.

When his mother died of breast cancer when he was 16, he remembers drinking his first beer with his dad as he cried into a peanut butter sandwich.

He went on to play football at Occidental College, and enlisted in the military, and he remembers them giving him crackers covered in peanut butter that was "so thick you could build a house with it" after getting all of their vaccinations at the beginning of PT in the army. He was in communications during WWII, spending most of his time in France and Germany as a part of the Devil's Brigade. History people will know that the Devil's Brigade was the group that made the landing at Normandy possible. They went ahead on what was considered a suicide mission to pave the way for the attack. They made a movie about it in 1968, and it's about 90 hours long. Or at least, it seemed that long when Papaw made me watch it when I was about kindergarten-aged.

Papaw was there when they liberated Auschwitz, and because he was too soft-hearted to go inside, he helped hand out food to the prisoners as they were being helped to safety. They fed them peanut butter to help get their strength up. Understandably, he won't talk about this very much, so I don't know any real details of what he did. I know that he says the smell coming from the camp was the worst thing he has ever smelled, and that he broke down and cried in front of all of his friends when he saw the state of the survivors. I know for a fact that he still feels guilty that they didn't save them sooner.

This led to all of us talking about the foods and smells that make us feel like a kid again. For Dad, it's green apples. The first time he kissed a girl, he was 13 and living in Wyoming. They were walking home from the bus stop, and took their usual path through a nearby orchard. Dad, being rangy, tall, and constantly hungry, hijacked a few granny smiths from one of the trees, and shortly after that, he got up the nerve to kiss the girl. Linda Watson, I think he said her name was. And now, whenever he smells or tastes green apples, that's what he thinks of.

For me, it's zucchini. But not in a good way! When I was a kid, during the happiest time of my entire life, we lived on a little 10 acre farm in Belton. We had goats and some ducks, a ton of chickens, and about a million rabbits. We also had amazing vegetable patches, a pecan grove, a little fruit orchard, and a great big corn field. Mother had no idea how to plant a veggie patch, and in those days you couldn't just look it up online. She ended up planting the zucchini, squash, and cucumbers too close together, and the zucchini cross-pollinated with everything. We had a ridiculous amount of zucchini-flavored things that year, and Mother had to use it. We had zucchini bread and muffins coming out of our ears... zucchini baked and fried and stewed and pureed. It was also the last time we planted zucchini in our garden.

Thanks to that debacle, I can't stand zucchini, but it's a staple in the stir-fry around here, and I love me some stir-fry. So when I get Chinese take out, I try to pick out all of the pieces of zucchini right at the start. Inevitably, I'll get a bite in my mouth and as soon as I taste it, I'm 6 years old again, choking down week number 9 of zucchini-any-style.

What about you? What are the flavors that take you back in time?

Hurry up and wait

2010-08-31T10:14:00.000-07:00

Still waiting to hear back about the job at the hospital. The training classes start next week, so surely they have to call people this week, right? Every day, I log into the hospital hiring site, where I can look at the status of past submitted applications (I have 22 of them.). And there it is, Patient Service Specialist, status 0050 Routed. Just like it's been since a week before my interview back in July. So, if they haven't changed it to "Not Selected", I have a reason to expect a phone call. Because they're quick with that Not Selected Status. I know, because I have 21 other applications that have it. And they all got it within about 2 weeks of my application.

I've been working so hard on this baby blanket for my cousin, that my right index finger got swollen last night. It had to have happened when I was asleep, because I didn't even notice till I woke up this morning with a sharp pain in it. It swelled so much in the night that I have a tiny little cut in the second knuckle crease, where the swelling split my skin. This used to happen to me all the time when I was pregnant with Emma. It hurts in an annoying sort of way, like a canker sore on your tongue. Nothing that really hinders you, but you know its there, and you can't stop mashing on it.

A normal person would take this as a sign to slow down on the knitting, but, well... I'm not normal. Plus, this is the first baby for my cousin and his wife, and everybody knows that first babies scoff in the face of due dates. So, just because he's due on Sept. 28 doesn't mean he's getting here then. And I have the blanket, the peapod, and some stuffed animals to finish before he comes. I'll be sending the whole package up with my aunt, because she'll come through Temple on her way to Ft. Worth/Dallas once the little guy comes, so I need to have it all ready for her.

I've finished the body of the blanket, and started the border last night. I ought to be mostly finished with the border by the end of the day today, and the pea pod will knit up super fast, just like the little monkey and whale toys I have planned. I promise to post pictures when everything is completed.

Another one bites the dust

2010-08-27T19:12:00.000-07:00

Well, I think it's safe to say that I didn't get the office manager job that I interviewed for on Monday. And as anxious as I am to get back to work, I'm not really sad at all about not getting it. The more i thought on it, the less and less it felt like a good fit. Too many caveats. Too many ways that I had to quantify it to make it a good place for me. Would I have accepted the job if I'd been offered it? You had better believe it! I need a job way too badly to turn my nose up at an offer that would be paying the bills by the time that I have real bills to pay. But I'm not sad about it.

Part of what's helping that is that I'm still waiting to hear back about the job with the hospital. I anticipate finding something out next week, seeing as how the training classes begin on the 7th. I check the job search site every day, because if they reject you for a position, and you go in to look at your application, it tells you that you weren't selected. Right now, it still has me listed as "Interview Complete," which is a good sign as far as I'm concerned.

Even if I wasn't a first round choice, inevitably, someone that they wanted to bring in will have found work elsewhere in the month and a half between callbacks and interview. That could be the little event that I need. It would make me sloppy seconds, but I don't have a problem with that action. I'm perfectly fine with sloppy seconds, if it means a paycheck for me.

I also did something that I don't normally do today, and that's apply for a job that I'm qualified for, but that is realistically just beyond my grasp. It's an Office Director position at an assisted living facility. On paper, I have all of the experience they're looking for, as well as some extra. Seeing as how I live with a grumpy old man, and have been solely responsible for his physical and mental well-being for the last two years, I have some insider knowledge there. I also have connections at Medicaid and Medicare, and anyplace dealing with hospice care and the terminally old is interested in people with that sort of policy training.

So I applied. I seriously doubt that I'll get a callback. In fact, I'll be so shocked if I do, that I might just pee on myself a little bit. Or vomit. I'll be in over my head, but I'm a good talker. Who knows what I could parlay that chance into.

Meanwhile, I'm spending my spare time working on content for the new blog (I can't believe how far ahead I've written. I never got this far ahead with Fifteen Miles) and when I'm all typed out, I'm working on a series of knitted baby gifts for my youngest cousin, Jason, and his wife, who are expecting their first baby on September 28th. I started a blanket today, and if time (and leftover yarn) allows, I'll be adding a pea-pod to the gift package, as well as a knit monkey and maybe a hat or some socks. We'll see. And you know I'll post some pictures.

Speaking of pictures, I took some snaps of the practice cake I made - Emma's birthday cake prototype. I'm planning on posting them, but before I do, I have to work out some kinks, and then I'll post the progression photos. The first try was pretty sad and pathetic. I've never done a two-tier fondant cake, and I've also never worked with gumpaste, so, yeah. It's pretty embarrassing to look at. But I'll get better! And once I have pictures of that, I'll show you. And if I don't get it right the second time, I'll just do cupcakes again. NBD.

It's Official

2010-08-24T20:22:00.000-07:00

The divorce is on. And, apparently, my brother and sister have known about this for weeks. Mother didn't tell me, for, well...obvious reasons. I guess Dad actually did tell her about the way I reacted when he played his little phone joke on me. I think he was trying to use it as a "come to Jesus" moment for Mother, sort of a "Look at how badly your behavior has impacted your relationship with your child" example. Mother, of course, took it as a "nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I think I'll go eat worms" moment. I wish she actually would eat worms.

The good news is that Mother won't be coming back here when she's graduated school. She's looking for work up in Dallas, and will most likely be staying there forever. I say good riddance to bad rubbish. No distance is far enough as far as my mother is concerned. I'll be interviewing surrogate grandmothers for Emma. Surely there are less pathetic people around that would like to spoil and dote on her.

The bad news is that Dad will be moving back to Austin once the divorce is final, which will make Emma sad, because she thinks her Pop is the greatest invention ever. Though this does make me feel the press to move back to the Austin area before Emma starts kindergarten.

Also, Dad will be happier. He said tonight that he's been miserable with her for years, he just didn't know how to get rid of her. That probably has a lot to do with his recent attitude toward everything. It's easy to be a hateful grump when you are disgusted with your life. I know... I've been there. I'm there currently.

In other news: had the job interview yesterday, and it went... meh. I want the job, because I want a job... this one would be kind of a dead end situation for me. I don't want to be an office manager for the rest of my life, but neither do I want to spend it hopping from job to job. Nothing went badly in the interview, but nothing really made me walk away from it feeling as though I have this one in the bag. I'm really hoping to hear from the hospital now, though if Tammy calls and offers me the office manager job, I'll take it.

Thanks, everybody, for all of the birthday well-wishes. It was a quiet day... I made my own birthday cake (nbd, I do that every year, and I'm fine with it. I love to make cakes.) and refused to clean up anything all day long. I let Emma run around in her pajamas all day, and didn't comb her hair. We laid on the couch and watched cartoons and ate cookies, and then we took a nice long nap. Dad came home early from work, and we all went out to dinner, and when we were done, it was just about time to get Emma home for bedtime. All in all, not a bad day.

Well, color me surprised

2010-08-22T12:21:00.000-07:00

Job interview in the morning at 11. Receptionist and office manager job at a realty office less than a mile away. The woman I spoke with today sounded as though she was ready to give me the job over the phone, right then, so I'm feeling okay, and not even a little bit nervous.

There are some drawbacks - the position doesn't pay as much as I need to be able to support myself and Emma, but even once I'm working, it's going to be a good six months before I'm able to save enough to move out. After a probationary period, I'd be up for a raise, she said, so that works. It's also a contractor position, which means I'm in charge of my own taxes. On the one hand, I'm a little bit concerned with that, because I don't know how much to withhold, but on the other, it's convenient. I'm pretty positive that the IRS can help me figure out how much to keep back, and if I've got an emergency one month, I'll be a little more capable of tackling it.

I guess... Happy Birthday to me?

Awww, one thing that's kinda cruddy though: I often go to the Target website to spend quality time with my sofa choice, to make sure it knows that I love it, and that I'm coming for it as soon as possible. Well, I guess Sofa got tired of waiting, because it was discontinued. :o( Sadness. But, in a way, I'm not too sad, because that thing was a bitch to coordinate! I couldn't find a coffee table or end tables that harmonized with it to save my life! So now, I'm going full-on shabby chic. It's kitschy and a little cliche, but it's also a look that I've really had a thing for for a long time.

Smug

2010-08-18T20:54:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling incredibly self-satisfied tonight. As you all know, I went off to get the materials for Emma's birthday party invitations on Tuesday. When I left for the craft store, I still hadn't decided on what I was going to do, really. I knew that I wanted to keep things simple, and with the idea I'd had some months ago for her birthday cake firmly in my mind, I was going to browse until I found something I liked.

I know that normal people just go to Party City or something, and get all of the stuff there, ready-made and all set to fill in and mail out, but I'm a nut. I won't be able to have dictatorial control over Emma's birthday parties for very long. In fact, it's very likely that next year, she'll be old enough to tell me what she wants, and it will probably be Dora the Explorer or Yo Gabba Gabba or something. So right now, while I have full creative freedoms, I'm kind of going all out.

So I wandered through the craft store, knowing that I'd feel it when I found the right thing. And of course, I did. I'd been wishy-washing between purple and blue for the major color, not able to make up my mind. Emma always chooses purple or blue when she has the choice, and will almost always choose blue over any other color. So, I was really leaning toward the blue, if I could find the right shade.

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but when I think blue, I think boy. I didn't want to go too dark, because that's too masculine. I didn't want to go too pale, because that screams "It's a boy!". Too turquoise would have changed the tone of the image in my mind. I don't know why I ever even bothered wavering. What's the most feminine shade of blue? The answer should have been obvious. Tiffany blue, of course!

And I found exactly that. A wonderful Tiffany blue card stock! The cake idea I'd had was a two-tier cake with colored fondant icing and a mass of bright white butterflies cascading from the top to the bottom. The top tier would be thick with them, thinning out as you go down the cake. What blue looks better with white than Tiffany?

I found a perfect butterfly stamp, a bright white ink pad, a white gel pen for filling out the inside of the card, and a sparkly blue one for addressing envelopes. I was so excited when I got it all home that I started cutting, folding, and stamping immediately. And I was instantly sad, because the blue was too bold. You could hardly see the stamp, because the blue shone through. And the way that the stamp was put together, you couldn't really double-stamp and come away with sharp lines. So, I improvised, because that's how I roll.

I took the white gel pen, and I retraced all of the edges of the stamp. Then, I took some white acrylic paint that I'd made very thin, and I filled in all of those bastards until they showed up bright and crisp and clean.

It's taken me 2 full days to complete 16 invitations. My hand is cramping, the gel pen is all but empty, but these invitations are absolutely perfect. Maybe too fancy for a 2 year-old's birthday party, but who cares? Look how pretty they are!

I'm making the practice cake in a week or two. I'll post pictures of it when it's finished.

Awww, Dad

2010-08-17T10:07:00.000-07:00

I love my Dad. He's thoroughly clueless an awful lot of the time, but he's pretty awesome.

My 30th birthday is next Monday, and I'm feeling pretty sick about it. Not about turning 30, but about turning 30 alone. Without any friends, a job, or any sort of social life or identity of my own. It's really taking its toll on me. The fact that I'm in exactly the same boat now as I was last year, with no forward movement at all. Yes, Emma has improved, but if I can't translate that into some kind of forward progression for our little family as a whole, then it's almost like nothing has changed at all.

Yesterday, my dad brought me flowers, a big mylar balloon, and a birthday cake. Bless his heart, he remembered that my birthday was on a Monday, but forgot that it was the 23rd, not the 16th. And you know what? I'm not even grumpy about it. The fact that he did something to recognize my birthday without my having to ask or hint, is enough for me. And really, if he's going to get the date wrong, it's better to jump the gun and do it a week early, than to do it a week late.

Today we begin the month-long prep for what will inevitably be another disappointing birthday party for Emma. Last year, none of her cousins came, and Papaw completely forgot and went out of town with his girlfriend. Emma didn't care, because she was one, and there was cake and new toys, but I did. This year, we're going to try again. And hopefully next year, she'll have a bunch of little preschool friends, so I won't care if any of my crappy family turns up or not.

Today I get the stuff to make her invitations and her practice cake. Last year, she had a garden party theme. This year, we're going for butterflies. I have her cake designed in my mind (and have for about 4 months now). Her favorite color is electric blue, so everything this year will be blue and white. Her cake is going to be a two-tiered circular layer cake with bright blue fondant icing, cherry cream cheese icing between the layers, and covered with bright white gum-paste butterflies. I've never worked in gum-paste before, so this will be an adventure. I'll be sure to post pictures.

Android Karenina

2010-08-12T09:47:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, I finally finished Android Karenina - Anna Karenina as retold by Ben H. Winters and Quirk Classics. And let me tell you, it was one of the most painful reads I have had to sit through since... well... I read Anna Karenina in high school, actually.

Here's the deal, y'all... nothing short of a complete rewrite can make boring and tedious into anything else. The parts that Mr. Winters embellished with the clever use of helper-robots, steampunk technology, time travel, and an unexpected alien invasion/cult were fantastic. They managed to perfectly overlay the original text in a seamless, yet profound, fashion. They enhance, they don't overwhelm. And for me, that's where the problem lay.

Leo Tolstoy is boring. And whiny. And dreary. His books have been called "love letters to Mother Russia," and frankly, if this is a love letter, I'd hate to see what his passive aggressive grouch-note to the roommate that never replaces the toilet paper looks like. Because this is an exceedingly difficult read to wade through, like all Tolstoy.

I may have been just a little bit biased, though because Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was so fantastically wonderful. But here's the thing: Jane Austen isn't a bore-me-to-tears kind of writer. Pride and Prejudice, on its own, is a favorite, intelligent, wonderful read. Add some zombie apocalypse, and it can only get better from there. Anna Karenina, while considered a classic, isn't as engaging. And the flashes of insight and action from the alien invasion, mysterious mechanical worms, machine-men companions, and other touches of steampunkery only serve to heighten the dullness of the original literature.

I'm further biased because, and I'll be blunt, I fucking despise the character of Anna Karenina. This is a woman who is happily married until a younger, roguish man (Vronsky) comes along to woo her. Then, with hardly a thought to anyone, she begins an affair with him, gets knocked up, and abandons her son and husband to go play house. Then, when playing house isn't good enough, and the young swain's affection begins to diminish, she turns into a petulant, combative, complaining, manipulative mess.

The reader is supposed to feel sorry for her, but I don't see how they can manage. She abandons her son, who is supposed to be the light her of her life and the center of her universe, for some guy she hardly knows. When we then find out that her betrayal has completely destroyed the father's (Karenin's) affection for his only child, turning him into a violent, angry monster, instead of risking her position to keep her son out of harm's way, she looks out for herself, abandoning him a second time. On his birthday.

She feels sorry for herself constantly without ever lifting a finger to fix the horrible catastrophes she has caused in other people's lives. Nothing is good enough, because nothing is the life that she abandoned for her illicit affair, and she becomes a bitter, jealous, angry shell of a human being. But, when people start to call her out on her bullshit, she threatens suicide. Remind you of anyone?

All in all, I'd say that Quirk Classics and Ben Winters did their job - they embellished a classic novel with the threads of science fiction while maintaining the integrity of the original work unfailingly. But when your source text is written by Leo Tolstoy... well, you can't really build a fortress on the sand, can you?

Now, I'm reading a book called Her Fearful Symmetry, by Audrey Niffenegger. I'm three chapters in, and it's already streets ahead of Android.

I finally accept you, fatness

2010-08-10T13:54:00.000-07:00

So, I've been on my diet for almost a month now, and I have hardly seen any difference at all in my weight. I've lost an inch, but I lost that inch in the first two weeks, which makes me think it was just water weight. I haven't lost a single pound (I've actually gained 4) and I don't feel as though I have any more energy than I did before I started. I noticed over the weekend that I'm much grouchier, and I snap at people all of the time. My patience is beyond worn thin, and I've started grinding my teeth in my sleep.

I'm ditching the stupid fucking diet.

In order for me to maintain a weight loss of one pound a week, which is supposed to be healthy and normal, I was supposed to cut my calories down to 1100-1300 a day, and work out daily for an hour and a half. Cutting down the calories wasn't so tough at first, but as time went on, I started getting really sick of being able to fit my entire daily food allowance on one 10-inch dinner plate. I was tired of being the first one finished at mealtimes. Tired of my calorie counter on SparkPeople chastising me every day because I'm not getting enough carbs, proteins, or fats for my calorie allowance. Tired of being told what I should be eating and only hearing really disgusting or expensive choices. And I've noticed, though I can't prove my diet has anything to do with it, that Emma has gone down from eating 4 fish sticks and a fruit cup at lunch to picking idly at her fruit, and eating maybe one fish stick. And I thought to myself, what kind of example am I setting for her?

I have always mocked my mother's ridiculous diets. She did the Atkins diet when I was in my late teens/early twenties, despite warnings from her doctor that diabetics should never eat the way that quack said people should be eating. Despite warnings from all over that she was not eating as healthily as she decided she was, Mother did the diet anyway. She soon developed serious bone density issues because of her refusal to drink milk, because it wasn't "on her diet". Now she's on some asinine lunch meat diet that is probably going to end up killing her liver and kidney function with nitrates.

Her motto? The good old "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels". Except that she's not thin, because she can only maintain her restrictive diets for a couple of weeks before she eats half a gallon of ice cream and then cries about how fat she is. Then the cycle starts again.

The thing is, I don't want to be like her. In fact, I want to be as unlike her as I can possibly be, because she's a thoroughly useless, horrible excuse for a human being. A total and complete waste of carbon. So last night, when I was in the throes of a PayDay craving, I had a serious heart-to-heart with myself.

I love food. And not in a dysfunctional way, either. I'm not an emotional eater. I don't use food to comfort. My weakness is boredom-eating. I get bored, I go check the kitchen for munchies. Then, I have cookies while I watch TV, or a bag of popcorn while I write, or a couple of Pop Tarts while I read a book. And I don't pay attention to how much I'm eating, and I get myself in trouble.

But I hate eating egg whites instead of a normal omelet. I don't mind low-sodium bacon, but I really despise no bacon at all or worse: turkey bacon. Gross. I want to have my biscuits and honey and not a painstakingly weighed 24 biscuits of shredded wheat with half a cup of watery skim milk. Carob is not a good substitute for chocolate, and wheat germ on nonfat yogurt doesn't replace pudding with sprinkles.

I plugged one of my favorite tuna croquette recipes into the recipe calculator on SparkPeople to have its nutritional value spelled out. Turns out it was really bad for my diet. So I asked for ingredient substitutions to make it more healthful, and the resulting concoction was so disgusting it made me gag when I tried to eat it. Why should I do that to myself? I don't want to remove the joy from my food. That removes joy from my life, in the whole, because for me, food is a joyful thing. I don't want to groan in annoyance because it's time to eat my dry and gross chicken and chopped spinach.

I want to cook healthier food, and I'm working to really learn how to. Keeping a larger array of frozen vegetables in the fridge (we only get to go grocery shopping once a month. Fresh won't keep for a month.). Cooking with canola and olive oil instead of butter or margarine. More fruit, fewer Oreos.

Dad's cholesterol issues are helping, because now there's no resistance to my healthy choices at the grocery store. Papaw whines a lot less on pasta night now. For some reason "I'm fat and need to eat better so I can lose some weight" isn't good enough for him, but Dad's high cholesterol will shut him up. Before, he was constantly trying to get me to eat ice cream and cookies with him and calling healthy foods plastic. But now, he keeps his junk food in a hidey-hole in his office, and doesn't mention it to me anymore. It's contraband these days.

I want to teach my daughter to have a healthy relationship with food, and I'm understanding that just being thin and maintaining that thinness isn't going to teach her that. When she's older, even if she looks at her mother and sees slender and pretty, she's also going to see that I have to work out two hours a day and eat almost nothing to get that way. I don't want her to think it's normal, because it's not. And honestly, who else am I losing the weight for? If I say I'm doing it for myself, so that I can be happier as a person, I'm lying. Because dieting makes me more miserable than being a fatty. I'm not losing weight to catch a man, because I don't want one. Like, at all. Not even an imaginary man, y'all. The thought of bothering with all of the whining and care that men require is completely off-putting to me.

This means that I'm losing weight for my daughter. I know that it's supposed to be mentally unhealthy for you to do anything to your body for any reason than for yourself, but fuck all that noise. She is me. I made her, I'm responsible for her, and I'm teaching her what life is. And if all I'm really doing is teaching her that starvation and exhaustion are what it takes to be skinny, and skinny is equal to happy, what is she really learning?

So, fuck the diet. I ditched the spreadsheet, I put away the scale, I canceled my membership with SparkPeople. I'm resolved to cooking using healthier ingredients, but not at the cost of delicious food. Portion control is being enacted, but I'm keeping my chocolate milk. I'll still be doing my daily work out, not because I enjoy it, but because part of a healthy lifestyle is exercise. If I'm trying to promote in Emma an understanding of being health-conscious, but not health obsessed, I need to make sure she's getting the whole equation. So, regular exercise is in, but in normal amounts. Not two and three hours a day in pursuit of something that isn't even who I am.

I don't love you, genetic predisposition to fatness. You're an unwelcome gift from my German great grandmother, you're not going anywhere, and I've got to come to terms with that. So we can be civil. We can learn to live together. I won't enable you, and eventually, you'll stop making me feel like I have a perfectly good excuse for eating that entire pan of brownies. Together, we'll teach my girl how to manage her food choices, and who knows? Maybe she'll love you for me.

Anybody interested in insider information?

2010-08-09T14:27:00.000-07:00

So, Papaw the Social Butterfly plays canasta with a group of ladies every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And I'm sure it will come as no surprise to you guys when I say that little old Christian women are horrible gossips. Plus, so is Papaw. He'll never admit to it, but he really really is. And I maintain, and I've told him so more than once, that if he hadn't gotten steady work as the local mailman right after being discharged from the army, he would have been an incredible private detective, because people just love to tell him things. He can always get all the dirt on anything you like, and this time it inadvertantly paid off for me.

One of the ladies he plays cards with started talking about office politics at her church. Anybody care to guess which church it was? I'll give you a hint: they strung me along for a job for a month.

Turns out that none of the interviewees got the job. Instead, the girl that had quit just before we were all interviewed came around, begging her job back. Now, according to the pastor during my interview, this girl had only worked for them for three months before she left, and during those three months, she'd quit and begged her job back twice already. All because of her on-again, off-again relationship. He lives in Galveston, and when things were going well, she'd go down there to live with him. Then, they'd break up or have a fight and she'd come back to Temple, beg her job back, and restart the cycle.

The most recent time she left was because apparently everything was all fixed up between them, and they were getting married. Guess it didn't work out since she's back in town again.

I don't really know how to feel about this information. On the one hand, I've come to terms with not having the position. I don't like the continual unemployment - who would in my situation? - but on the other, I'm pissed off that I didn't get this job because some wishy-washy bimbo, who honestly seems to be a really horrible employee, sobbed her way back into a job that she obviously doesn't appreciate. What happens when something else happens with her boyfriend and she quits again?

I actually think I'd be happier thinking that it was just my work they didn't like. Not that I was really happy with that, but for some reason, it's okay for my mind if I lost out on the job because there was someone in the hiring pool that was more proficient, or better credentialed, or laughed at more of the Pastor's corny Dad jokes. But to lose a really good chance because of some woman who can't get her shit together? I think I'm actually insulted by that!

I guess it goes to show that I wouldn't have been a good fit there. I understand that not all officeplaces are created equal, but this fucking takes the cake. They'd better not try to give me any calls when she flakes out and leaves them high and dry again.

Okay, for real this time

2010-08-07T11:05:00.000-07:00

I was on a goddamn roll last night, you guys. I started typing, and before I knew it, I had 10 pages banked for posting.

Popular opinion has spoken, so we'll go with shorter, more frequent posts. As of today, with the volume I wrote last night, I've got more than a month of weekly posts lined up, and I'm hoping that I'll be able to get even further ahead over the weekend. It's easier to write on weekends, because I refuse to cook supper, and I have some extra sets of hands to keep Emma occupied. My concentration is broken less, and I'm able to really churn it out when inspiration strikes.

Part of the downfall of Fifteen Miles was giving myself a deadline for posting. I don't think I do very well with that when it comes to writing, which is odd, because I generally produce my best stuff when I'm working toward a deadline. So, to keep from landing myself in that pitfall this time around, I'm not giving myself an update day. Just a promise to post once a week.

To keep you from having to check back 90 times a week, hoping for a post, I've added a mailing list widget which will alert you to new posts. If you utilize the mailing list, I'm going to put in a very brief recap of what happened in the previous post, so that you don't lose the storyline. If you've got a Google ID, there's a button to add the blog to your RSS/Google Reader, as well.

For those of you who already read the post I pulled down yesterday, allow me to 'splain. I just plain didn't like the amount of story that I felt I had left out by working in a flashback style. You guys know me... I really love to get descriptive. I felt like the story was beginning in a shallow tone, because I was glossing over so much. So I pulled it, did a rewrite, and changed some details that I decided I didn't like.

I hope you all like the new story. It's going to be a little bit different from what you've seen from me in the past, I hope.

Question, Imaginary Friends

2010-08-06T19:46:00.000-07:00

So. Revamping the story for the fiction blog. I got to thinking about it and realized that I'd gypped myself out of a good several pages of exposition with unnecessary brevity, so I'm re-writing. Which is going really well... perhaps a little too well, in fact. What I had posted before was just over a single page typed up. I now have four full pages of narrative, with a couple of "okay" places to break. Here's the question: Would you prefer a once-every-week-or-so shorter post, or a less frequent, but much longer post? Leave a comment and clue me in. I'll wing it until then.

Momentous Occasion

2010-08-06T08:52:00.000-07:00

So, Prop 8 has been given a swift kick in the pants, and I knew it was only a matter of time before Crazy Uncle Don sent something that roused Papaw's inner bigot. What I didn't expect was to have a reasonable conversation about it with him, as well as being able to explain to him in understandable terms the reason I stopped attending his church. It began like this:

I was standing in the kitchen, making Emma's lunch, while Papaw was back in the family room, checking his email. I knew that he was about to get all fired up, because I could hear an anti-gay clip from Fox News playing at an ear-bleeding decibel level. A few minutes later, he came storming into the kitchen, demanding to know what I thought of the news.

"I'm overjoyed that Prop 8 was overturned. It won't last very long because opponents will appeal and appeal until they get a judge they like, but I'm glad that, for now, the big first step has been made."

I knew this would cause an arm-flapping, sputtering moment of outrage. He couldn't even form words, he was so apoplectic with rage at me. I remained calm and just looked at him. Then the Bible-thumping began. "Peter said in his letters to - "

I cut him off. "Peter was a sexist, misogynistic asshole, and I don't care what he had to say about anything, Papaw." I knew that this would probably cause another explosion of wordless fury, but it's not really in me to stand by and keep my mouth shut when I hear bigotry firing up. I'm physically incapable (see? I would have been very bad working in that church).

But at my comment, all of the wind seemed to go out of Papaw's crazy-sails, and he just kind of chuckled instead. "You know, your grandmother felt the exact same way."

"Well, my grandmother was very smart, you know." (Duh)

"Yes, she was. My mother wasn't very fond of Peter, either."

"Well, Papaw, it sounds to me like the women you respected most didn't think Peter was worth anything, so maybe you should take that cue, huh." He nodded a little bit. "Here's the thing, Papaw. Marriage is a religious rite. Without a filed legal certificate, it has no legal standing. I don't see what it would matter to the religious community if homosexual marriages gained legality - it's not like your church would give them the religious rite of marriage, anyway."

He stood for a second, like he was forming his argument. I kept going, trying to keep my voice calm and reasonable, so that he wouldn't get hysterical again. "Civil Union is what makes a marriage legal. Why can't we do things like most of Europe? Civil Unions to make it legal, marriage if you feel like having a church wedding."

"Yes, but... separation of Church and State.... the government can't tell churches what to do!"

"Who's telling churches that they have to perform same-sex marriages? I read the entire 100+ page court decision, and nowhere in there is it even implied that churches must now marry gays. This is a legal argument. If the law can't govern a church, then the church needs to stop meddling in the law. You people can't have it both ways."

"You people... you're one of us too, remember. A Christian."

Now, I have to admit... I had a serious inner struggle with my response. I'm not a Christian, and will never be one again for reasons that I think I've gone into aplenty here. I had decided that I would never tell Papaw that I'm an Atheist, because it doesn't serve any positive purpose. It would only hurt him to know it, and make him feel like a failure as the spiritual head of his family, and there's no point in that. I'm respectfully silent during prayer at mealtimes, because I'm in his house, and those are his rules. I'd expect others to respect my home and my rules in regards to religion. I struggled to answer him honestly without letting him know that I'm Atheist (and that prior to my Atheism had spent 13 years actively practicing what Christians would consider to be Witchcraft).

"I meant churchgoers, Papaw. I'm not one, remember?"

Which led to a conversation on why, exactly, that is. I tried to be honest, again, without giving anything specific away. I told him that I stopped attending church when the pastor felt the need to start preaching about how evil "the gays and homosexuals" are. I told him that Christianity is supposed to be about love, and that I would not expose myself or my daughter to hatred. I'm supposed to teach her right from wrong, and if I want her to understand that hatred is wrong, then I couldn't also make the example of condoning it silently. People can't help how they're wired, and whose business is it what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own homes?

Our conversation isn't over. He still thinks that homosexuals are instruments of the devil, and deserve to roast in the pits of hell for their crimes against nature, and there will never be anything that I can that's going to change his mind on that. He's 86 years old, for crying out loud. He told me that I wasn't allowed to live on the east side of town because "That's Blacktown". His bigotry is deeply rooted. But at least now he understands why it's okay for the gays to marry.

Let's Play a Game...

2010-08-04T10:53:00.000-07:00

It's called Bad Thing/Good Thing, and it's how I pull myself through the dark times.

Bad Thing: Dad had a physical last week, and his cholesterol is staggeringly high. Like, to the point where the doctor ordered his blood panel to be redone, because he was pretty certain that the lab techs had actually tested a tub of pig fat. Dad isn't fat, he isn't sedentary, and his diet isn't shockingly bad (aside from his holy trinity diet of butter, gravy, and bacon), and he takes krill oil and fish oil supplements to battle his "bad" cholesterol level. I don't want to put his actual numbers out there, but his triglycerides were over 500. Most of this is due to genetic predisposition.

Good Thing: Dad and I ganged up on Papaw to virtually eradicate butter from our refrigerator. We've moved onward to a heart-healthy margarine, ground turkey instead of ground beef, low sodium bacon (which I learned is leaner), a wider variety of frozen veggies, and a ton of fresh fruit. Not only is this good for Dad's health, but also Papaw's and mine. Hooray for high cholesterol.

Bad Thing: Didn't get the job at the church. Nuff said.

Good Thing: How long did I honestly think I could work in an evangelical church office before I went batshit insane? I mean, I do my best to be tolerant, and I think I do a pretty good job. But after having really thought about it over the past few days, I'm pretty certain that the constant bombardment of religiosity would have killed any joy that I found in the creativity aspect of the work. I know myself well and I know that eventually I would have snapped and been forced to say something. And, based on previous interactions with charismatic Christians, if it had come out that I'm an Atheist, none of them would have rested until I was converted. So, maybe it's better that I didn't get it.

And this actually leads us forward into a second possible good thing.

Bonus Good Thing? I interviewed with the local (giant) hospital as a patient care consultant: the miserable bitches behind the counter at Emma's doctor's office. I'm still of two minds on whether or not I want the job (who knows when I'll find out if I got it, because training classes don't start until September 7th, so they're in no hurry to contact the lucky winners). On the one hand, the women I've encountered who do this job seem absolutely miserable. On the other, perhaps they're just sour bitches. Maybe they're the type of person who are just always grumpy about something. Also, if I can get in with Scott and White, there are a lifetime of potential career opportunities, not to mention a free ride for health insurance. Yay! And honestly, I wouldn't hate that job any more than another job, even if it turns out to be true that it makes you a miserable grouch.

Bad Thing: Mother is going to start coming back soon on the weekends for what she's calling "procedurals," which I'm pretty certain is a made up word. All it is is on the job training at the funeral home.

Good Thing: Dad has pretty much made up his mind to divorce her, and has started talking smack about her whenever the opportunity arises. We now have a nice heap of inside jokes that I will take particularly bitchy glee in throwing out there while she's in the room. Childish? Yes. Mean? Possibly, but no meaner than she's been to me my whole life, so I'm alright with that.

Titles

2010-08-01T13:25:00.000-07:00

The book I'm currently stumped on is going to be children's fiction called The Wondiferous Weirding of Lindy Plaster. Influences include: Nanny McPhee, Matilda, Pippy Longstocking, The Littlest Witch, and some of the general creepiness of James and the Giant Peach. Illustrated by me, I think.

The new blog, which is still coming together for me, is called Love is Written in the Cracks of my Soul. I'm trying to decide if it's too much to have my personal blog as well as a fictional blog that covers aspects of my past without being too self-indulgent.

I thought and thought

2010-07-31T19:50:00.000-07:00

And then I thought some more.

I'll be making a new blog. This one will still be here, and will probably be the one I update the most, but I'm feeling the need for some fiction. The book has stalled without so much as a complete first chapter, and I've lost my patience. But there's still a drive for... something.

So, new blog is birthing. It's still gestating, but it'll be up before long, I think. It won't be a diary type of venture - been there, done that, and smacked into that brick wall. This will be a story, told like a narrator would tell a story. A little something new, I'm going to try and illustrate it, too.

So, pay attention to the toolbar on the right. Once I'm ready to go live, I'll throw up a link.

2010-07-30T07:26:00.003-07:00

I didn't get the job.

2010-07-29T14:09:00.000-07:00

I have seen this all over the internet for weeks now, but it never stops being funny. Maybe because when I read the caption, it sounds like Morgan Freeman in my head.

All right. I've done all I can do

2010-07-28T11:14:00.001-07:00

I've just sent off the email. Here's what I wrote:

Hi, Andrew

I'll keep this short so as not to take up too much of your time. I haven't heard anything back from anyone regarding the job, and am curious as to whether or not a choice has been made. If not, do you know anything by way of a timeline? If it's just a matter of it being a particularly difficult choice, I do have some other artwork that I could send - not only digital, but also several watercolors that I've done recently - as well as the most recent newsletter I've made for my family.

Thank you for your time, again.

If I hear anything back, I'll post it.

UPDATE: Heard back from Andrew - the Senior Pastor (the decider) is out of town this week. Hence the radio silence. Very comforting to know, and I don't know why they couldn't just say "The Pastor has been called away for a week, so he'll be making the decision when he returns" when they called to let me know about the delay. Waiting sucks and all, but waiting with fucking explanation sucks decidedly less. Poor professionalism on the part of his assistant.

Andrew welcomes any new art that I have, and will forward it to the Senior Pastor. I'll be sending some along this afternoon, as soon as I decide which ones.

Going a little bit nuts

2010-07-27T09:19:00.000-07:00

I still haven't heard anything, which I guess I should be taking as a good sign. But why? According to the senior Pastor (who will be the one making the final choice) This is a position that must be filled, and quickly. So why has it taken almost a month to make a decision? Part of me wants to call them up and say "I've had an offer from another job, but I'd prefer your job. Can you hurry the hell up and make a decision already?" just to get them to get on with it. If they're not going to choose me, fine. I won't like it, but at least then I'd know. Carrying on for weeks without knowing if you got a job is excruciating!

Every time the phone rings, I jump to answer it first, because if Papaw answers it, there's no telling what he'll say to them. He often hangs up on people before they even have a chance to say anything at all because he decides they're robo-calls. Yesterday, I went to go do a final check of the daycare that I'm enrolling Emma in, and the entire time, I had anxiety about getting back quickly, in case someone called.

Here's what I want: someone telling me if I got the fucking job or not. It's getting to the point where I almost don't want the damn thing because I feel so strung along. Honestly, if it's such a horribly difficult decision that you can't pick between three people, call in another round of interviews and talk to everyone again. Ask for more artwork. Give us an assignment to complete so that you can see whose creativity fits best with what you want.

I know what some of you are thinking. My life has been on hold for 2 years, what's another few days? Well, I'll tell you. It's a big deal. A huge deal. I want out of this house. I want my own car again. I want to be able to tell Dad and Papaw to cook their own supper, because I had a long day at work, and I don't feel like coming home and playing MasterChef. I want some actual, measurable forward movement, not the same pathetic stagnation that I've been barely coping with for the last 18 months. I cannot even begin to express how insanely sick I am of putting on a happy face, letting daily insults roll off my back, and being the family drudge. I already did that. For 17 years solid.

I don't want a bunch of strangers telling me to keep my chin up, to think positive thoughts, and don't worry, everything will workout for the best, even if I don't get this job, it's because Imaginary Sky Man has a better plan! I'll be better off! Fuck off. If that's the kind of things you feel driven to say to me, then please don't even open the comments screen.

I just want an answer. Is that too much to ask?

7 minutes to the close of the busines day...

2010-07-23T14:58:00.000-07:00

And the phone rang. "The Pastor has been really busy today, and hasn't made a choice yet. He asked me to call and let you know that we'll make the choice on Monday or Tuesday."

Holy crap. My poor stomach is going to have the worst ulcer from the worry. I'm wound so tightly that touching commercials are making me fight back tears. This is insane.

In other news...

2010-07-22T21:48:00.000-07:00

Harvey Pekar passed away last week, and I've meant to blog something about it, but I've been so caught up in the drama of the job hunt that I almost forgot. I won't be surprised if nobody knows who he is. He wasn't what you'd call mainstream, and probably the only thing that most of America will remember are his appearances on David Letterman back in the day. They would sit around and gripe at each other, as Harvey was the original Grumpy Old Man. I'm pretty certain he was born grumpy.

Harvey Pekar was a comic pioneer, along with the likes of Robert Crumb, who helped create the world of adult comics (not in the XXX sense, necessarily. Just comics for grownups) in the early and mid-70's. Harvey wrote American Splendor, an autobiographical comic that was more gloom, doom, negativity, and ire than anything else. It chronicled the mundane, exalted the commonplace, and was a bastion of everyman drudgery that people seemed to love reading.

Harvey was a pioneer. Until he came around, comics were built on a foundation of superhumanity, fantasy, and unreality. Who wants to read about the boring Joe Shmoe down the block? Now, in our world of reality TV, documentaries, and blogging, we know that everybody wants to know about everybody's mundanities. Other people are interesting. Even if they're boring people. Even if they're grumpy or never-endingly negative. Even if they're obnoxious PollyAnnas. People always want to know about people. And Harvey was one of the first to fulfill that need. America's first blogger, really.

American Splendor was, in his words, "an autobiography written while it's happening". Read it and learn about the beginning of his marriage to wife Joyce, his selling of records to his workmates at the VA hospital where he was a file clerk until he was old enough to retire and collect a pension. The year in which he was diagnosed with, and beat, lymphoma. No aspect is spared.

Harvey wrote American Splendor literally up until the day he died, July 12, 2010, at the age of 70, most likely from complications of prostate cancer.

I discovered American Splendor when I was about 15 years old, a sophomore in highschool.It didn't change my life, but for a while, it changed my outlook. I have a respect for Harvey Pekar, and I was sad in my heart to hear he'd passed.

If you have an interest, you can get his comics on Amazon, and there is also a really great American Splendor movie that was made in about 2003, starring Paul Giamatti. They worked closely with Harvey and Joyce, and while it's not a happy story, or an inspiring story, it's definitely an interesting one, and worth a watch.

Bye, Harvey. May you always have someone to grumble at.

And that, as they say, is that

2010-07-22T10:46:00.000-07:00

Oh, this morning got off to a horrible start. Emma had a rough night for some reason and was waking up every couple of hours last night, so I didn't get enough sleep. Then, I lost a bunch of getting ready time to teaching Papaw how to print. I teach him this literally every single day, because he feels the need to print out his emails and take them with him to the senior center to show to his friends.

Then, once I finally got down to getting ready, it was a bad hair day. I managed to get it to a point where I at least didn't look like I belonged in special ed, and went to get dressed. I didn't find any dresses that I liked yesterday, so instead I bought myself a new pair of chinos and this awesome coral colored top. I was actually pretty stoked about it, because I knew that color would not just look nice on me, but would make me memorable. At least, it would have if the shirt had fit, even a little bit.

Here's what pisses me off about that: I bought the fucking thing TWO SIZES TOO BIG. But I couldn't get it to button and stay that way. I was so mad. Especially since I had nothing else appropriate to wear. So I put on the chinos, and they were too big!!! The shirt I'd bought too large was waaaay too small, and the pants I'd bought the correct size (the size which matched the pants I was wearing yesterday, bought at the same fucking store) were ridiculously big. I wanted to cry.

I ended up wearing a pair of khaki capris, a black button down peasant-style blouse, and an incredibly sassy pair of teal peep-toe mary jane wedges with rhinestone earrings. My hope is that they dressed the casual up a little bit.

When I got to the church (after Papaw decided to take about 90 back roads just so that he wouldn't have to sit through one stop light, turning a five minute drive into almost 15 minutes) Pastor Johnston was still closeted in his office with the appointment before me. I'm pretty certain that she was another job candidate, because I could hear snatches of their conversation through the door. And laughing. Lots and lots of laughing.Talk about intimidating.

When I got in, I immediately apologized for my clothes. "I had a last minute wardrobe malfunction. I would have preferred to look more professional." There. I acknowledged that my outfit wasn't my first choice, just in case his first impression was, "That's what she's wearing? She's not taking this seriously at all."

Luckily, he was very understanding, and we got down to the interview. It got off to a little bit of a bumpy start. My nerves were getting the best of me, and I found myself tripping over my tongue a lot. But I eventually found my groove, and we talked for almost an hour. I think it went well.. I mean, I can't think of anything in the actual interview itself that went awry. In the end, he said that he'd spoken to 4 ladies, and that of those four, he thought that three had the qualifications he was looking for. And that I'm one of them. He also said a couple of times that he thought I'd fit in well in the office.

They're making the decision this week, which means I'll know by close of business tomorrow. He promises that they'll be calling whether I get the job or not. Now, to wait.

The email has been sent

2010-07-21T10:45:00.000-07:00

And it has also been replied to. I asked only about the senior pastor's son, and how his surgery went, so I could pass the information along to Papaw's church prayer room. Andrew says that the surgery went very well, and that he was recovering nicely, which is good to hear. I know I used the surgery as an excuse to email, but I did have a very real concern. Face surgery is a big deal (hell, any surgery is a big deal, honestly), and now that I've had the experience of sitting helplessly by while someone pokes around inside of your kid, I know how stressful it can be.

And, as hoped, Andrew did give some insight as to the status of my callback. It seems that he's had trouble tracking down one of my references, so he asked for another. I gave him one, along with the information that this individual knew my work habits, but didn't like me as a person, so I wasn't confident in the kind of description he would give. I also pressured him gently to contact my dad (though he doesn't know it's my dad).

That may sound cheatery, too, but I really don't feel that way. When I was working for Dad, I was held up to a much higher standard than the people around me. My first day, Dad took me around to each of the department supervisors, told them that I was his kid, and that if I did anything wrong, he wanted to hear about it. While I was working for Medicaid, I was a reflection of my father, who was (and still is) a very respected and well-liked employee. If I screwed up, it would make not just myself look bad, but also Dad. Not only did I never get a single favor or bit of preferential treatment, I was actually worked harder than my peers, because of who recommended me.

Dad has also told me that he will not lie or embellish for me when he's called as a reference, and I believe it. Respect is a big deal, and greater than respect is integrity. Dad won't compromise that, and it's something to be admired. It's one of the things that I learned from him, also. If I don't behave with pride in myself, how can I feel as though I'm a good person? If I do something that I wouldn't want anyone to know about, what does that say about what I did?

I'm not nervous at all about Andrew calling my dad. I know that he won't lie for me, and that he won't exaggerate my good points, but I'm also very proud of the work I did while I was with Medicaid. It was a god-awful job where I basically did nothing but give horrible news to impoverished families all day long. I would go home and cry every single day because I felt so bad about how detached and cold I had to be while telling a teenager that even though her stepfather has raped her repeatedly and knocked her up twice, the State won't pay for her to have her tubes tied, because she's only 16. That job was a nightmare, but I did it to the best of my ability. I was kind and as understanding as I was allowed to be. I was an efficient and dependable worker who did not just my own work, but trained and aided the workers around me. I know Dad won't have anything bad to say about my performance.

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE
Andrew called Dad. Glowing reviews were given. Now to wait. Again.

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE TO THE UPDATE
Tomorrow morning, 10 o'clock, interview with the Senior Pastor. WTF. I need a new dress.

Update on the situation

2010-07-20T12:50:00.000-07:00

I have an interview with the local (giant) hospital on Friday. It's a group interview, and I really hate those, but at least it's something. I can fool myself into not collapsing as long as I'm getting interviews. Even if they're for jobs that I don't really want. It's for a "Patient Service Specialist." You know the lady that sits behind the counter at check-in, giving you bad attitude and looking like she hates every single moment that she's alive? That would be me, if I get this.

Up side is that the hospital insurance plan is pretty decent, if you're an employee, which would mean no more hassling with Medicaid for Emma. It would also mean that I could get in there and pull the strings for appointment scheduling for her, so that we never have to sit for 2 hours in a hot waiting room while the triple-booked Echo tech stands in the hallway yakking to her friends instead of doing her job.

I don't know what kind of salary this job has... I'd like it to be above my minimum, but I'm dubious. I have a step-aunt who works for them, and she says the pay is pretty meh. Enough to live on, but not enough to have any kind of real savings. We'll see. I'm not really excited about it at all, though if they offered me a job, I'd take it.

Still no word from Andrew about the creative assistant position. I've given up on it, I think.

Edited to add: On the weight-loss front, mixed reviews. I weigh myself every day, at the same time, on the same scale, in the same spot, wearing the same clothes. I know that your weight can fluctuate during the day, and sometimes even from day to day. So far, according to my scale, I've gained 2 pounds.

I'm glad I didn't see that 2 pounds yesterday, because I've been sticking to my diet very closely, doing my cardio workout daily, strength training 3 times a week, and a core workout twice a week. As sad as I was yesterday, that would have completely killed me, and I would have gone to town on the tub of ice cream in the freezer that I've been so good at avoiding. But today, weighing time came after the call from the hospital, and I think that call gave me just enough of a boost, because when I saw the numbers, even though my heart sank, it didn't take my determination with it.

My brain immediately said, "Wait a minute. You've been good with the diet. You've been moving around, taking your vitamins, doing your exercising... there has to be something to show for it." It occurred to me that I have a horrible slouching problem when I sit at my desk. And not just my shoulders, but my entire spine just melts into a puddle of fat lazy. All my life, I've had to constantly remind myself to sit up straight, and for the last week, I haven't had to remind myself as much. I can feel that while I have a ridiculous amount of fat around my middle, my abs and back muscles support me better. I can feel them in a way that I never really have before. So I measured my waistline.

It's almost an inch smaller. 2 inches is about equal to one dress size. My thighs are a full inch thinner. My upper arms are about half an inch smaller. So who knows where those 2 pounds are. Muscles, maybe.

Oh crap. Here it comes, you guys.

2010-07-19T09:57:00.000-07:00

I started feeling it last night right before I went to bed. I'd had a realization a couple hours prior, and couldn't shake the feeling of doom. Pastor Andrew said that he would be calling at least 2 references for everyone he was considering. My dad is one of my references, because he was my boss for a year when I worked for Medicaid a few years ago. Andrew hasn't called him yet.

I'm trying to tell myself that maybe he was waiting to get through all of his interviews first, and will call everyone in one big flush today or tomorrow. But I'm not buying it. My whole body is wired with anxiety, and I can feel the depression looming. The mean voice in my mind has already started in on me, telling me that I'm not good enough, won't get this job, and have no hope. I'll be stuck living on my grandfather's couch forever.

I'm doing my best to ignore it and press on, but it's tough. I left the interview feeling great, but now I'm thinking of ways that I could have done a better job. Things I should have mentioned, but forgot to in my nervousness. All of the things that I was confident would set me apart in a positive way are seeming less special.

My momentum is stalling. I'm having an almost impossible time trying to motivate myself into workouts and to keep away from baking and eating the box of brownies in the pantry.

Exacerbating the problems are phone calls that I got from my mother and my brother over the weekend. They're feeding the demon, so to speak. My brother called to talk to Papaw, who wasn't here. So we chatted for a few minutes, and I told him about the job. I don't know why I did. My brother is kind of a jerk. I guess I just remember how sweet he used to be, back when we were kids and I was taking care of him all the time. He's not that kid anymore. After describing the job to him and how perfect it would be, how badly I wanted it, and how well it would fit in with where I'd chosen to live, and the daycare I'd picked for Emma (they're all within a 1-mile stretch of freeway) he said, "Well, that's how you know you won't get it. Things like this never work out the way you want them to." And he's right.

Then, a few hours later, enter Mother. Of course. "I was just thinking, Val. I have a closet full of clothes from when I was still working (that was 15 years ago, folks. 15 years), and if you wanted to borrow any of them, you could." Sounds nice, right? Wait for it..... "In fact, you can keep them if you want. Most of them will probably fit, and they're all just absolutely huge on me now!"

My mother is only 2 sizes smaller than I am.

*sigh* I hope I can make it through. I'm trying my best, but I'm afraid that I'll crumble if I get another stumbling block thrown in my path. Just how strong am I going to have to be, all by myself?

I Can Art.

2010-07-18T09:12:00.000-07:00

Well wouldja lookit that. There's real, actual art too. Nothing craftsy a-tall. This watercolor will hang on Emma's wall, paired in the same frame with a watercolor of a daffodil beside it. I'm working on a couple more in my free time.

Daffodil Fairy watercolor on paper 9x12

Okay. Here goes.

2010-07-16T14:06:00.000-07:00

Painful confession time. Since I've been living here, I've gained almost 100 pounds. That's fucking ridiculous, y'all. Part of it is because I never get out and do anything, part of it is because the people I cook for won't eat anything unless it's been soaked in bacon grease first, and part of it is because I have a crippling sweet tooth, and my precious Papaw feeds it like it's about to die. There is always sugary junk food in this house, and my willpower is pathetic. Ice cream and cookies, man. Kryptonite.

So, I had a discussion with the family last night over dinner. They wanted deep-fried pork chops, cream gravy, and mashed potatoes, so I made it for them. But to make a point, I made a grilled pork chop for myself, kept the cheese separate from the broccoli, and got my helping of potatoes before all of the butter and salt were added. It raised some eyebrows around the table. From now on, I'll be making myself something different from what they eat, and I'm going to be adding more food that's good for me to the monthly shopping trip. Food that they have to keep their grubby little mitts off of. Honestly, it's unfair for me to have to make three different dinners every night, but it's what I'm going to have to do.

I'm also refusing to buy any junk food. Since I'm the one doing all of the grocery shopping, it's the only way that I can stem the tide. I've told them that if they choose to buy junk food, to please keep it in their rooms, the office, or their desk if they can. Obviously, ice cream will have to stay in the freezer, but I've just got to get over myself and start saying no.

Aside from the bad eating habits, getting exercise in is a problem. I have absolutely no privacy in this house. I don't have a bedroom with a door on it like Dad, or an office to hide in like Papaw. Anywhere in the house that I go (aside from the bathroom) I am constantly barged in on. Papaw will come into the family room while I'm checking my email or writing on my blog and stand behind me, staring over my shoulder. Something I've asked him repeatedly not to do, and he refuses to listen to me.

Because of the size I've allowed myself to get to, working out is extremely embarrassing for me. There's a lot of jiggle, way too much wobble, all kinds of huffing and puffing... I prefer not to feel like I'm a spectator sport. I'll do it if I can be left alone to exercise in private, but I can't count on Papaw to do that. I've explained to him as plainly as I can that everyone else in the house has private places they can go except for me. I've asked him to please leave me alone when Emma is down for her nap, so that I can do what I need to do without being stared at, but he doesn't listen. He doesn't see why I need privacy if I'm not doing anything I shouldn't be, and I can't make him understand that I just plain don't like to be watched. It's creepy and embarrassing.

So, I have to try and sneak my workouts into the first half hour of Emma's nap time. This is really tough to do, since she doesn't always lay down and go right to sleep. I often have to pause my Tae Bo (Billy Blanks, I love you so) to go lay her back down, which fucks with my pulse rate. And, if I have to pause too many times, I lose my very thin window of alone time, and Papaw comes home to stare and gawk and make comments on how ridiculous that kind of exercise looks. Daily workout epic fail.

To try and combat it, I downloaded a series of 10 minute workouts. My computer is always hooked up to the TV, so I can just turn one on, and generally manage to make my way through at least one before I'm interrupted. It isn't ideal, but it's better than not doing anything at all, right? Then, since Dad goes to bed at about 9 on weeknights, and Papaw reads in his office from about that time till he turns in for the night, and Emma goes to bed by 8:30 every night, I'm going to try and do my Tae Bo then. I know that evening workouts are supposed to be bad for your muscles, but again.... better this than nothing.

It will also help me with my other problem: night time snacking. The only quiet time I get is at night, after everyone has gone to sleep. That's when I'll watch all of my TV shows, or movies, work on my embroidery or a painting, maybe read a book. And that's also generally when I'm eating something I shouldn't be. My willpower becomes less than a ghost after 10 pm. So, maybe if I'm spending almost an hour each night working out, I'll feel less inclined to snack.

I joined SparkPeople, too. Not to make a public profile or join support groups. Right now, things are too constrictive in my day-to-day for me to feel comfortable in any kind of weight loss group. No, I want to use the nutrition tracker, and the workout tracker to make sure that I'm staying within the guidelines. I've also made myself a spreadsheet to track my weight loss. Because that's how I roll. With spreadsheets. I'm attempting a 2-pound-per-week weight loss plan. This will shed the 100 pounds I've gained within a year. After that, I'm only interested in maintaining.

Every day, directly after laying Emma down for her nap, I'll weigh myself and enter it into the spreadsheet. I've marked each Friday in bolded red, with the weight-loss target already filled in. This way, I'll know quickly if I get off track, and hopefully, it will keep me on the straight and narrow.

So, here we go, Imaginary Friends. I'm tired of feeling disgusted with myself. I'm tired of not being able to wear age-appropriate clothes, because I've let myself go. I'm tired of not taking pictures with my daughter, because I hate the way that I look. I don't want her to grow up with an obese mother. I don't want her learning my bad eating habits. Even though genetics have smiled on her in the metabolism department, and she's going to be tall and slim, I want her to have a positive relationship with food, and I can only foster that if I have one too. This is a 50/50 split of do it for her and do it for me mentality.

Just for the sake of a documented visual, here are my before and (projected) after images (thanks, mvm.com. You were created for ease in online shopping, but I've only ever used you to get a realistic view of my fatness.)

CRAFT-A-PALOOZA!

2010-07-14T12:52:00.000-07:00

So, I've been doing an awful lot of bitching, moaning, and decorating an imaginary apartment lately, and absolutely no bragging about my crafts. Mainly that's because I've been trying to finish up a bunch of half-finished things. I've got some things done, and would now like to share them.

First up, remember the yellow pom-pom flowers I made for the stitching contest (in which I didn't even place, blast it. But neither did I embarrass myself, so... there's that.)? Well, they've moved on from their inception as a simple-but-complex bit of stitchery and found their home as a 12 inch throw pillow cover.

Oh yeah... it's also fully machine washable, and removable:

If I were to sell this in my etsy shop, what should I ask, as far as price? The flowers themselves took about 15 hours of making knots, and the border, backing, and zipper installation probably took about 2 hours.

Next, in the category of Imaginary Home, is a piece that I did for Emma.

The color of the frame is apparently her favorite color these days. I have a big box of acrylic paints that she sometimes gets into, and when she does, that color of blue is the one she always picks. There's no glass over the stitching, and I mounted it to the backing of the frame with spray-starch. Here's a close-up of the whitework:

There's a thin line of iridescent running stitch accenting, and I still have one final touch that I'd like to put on it. In the space above the E, I'd like to put a little flat-backed circular crystal, and in the space below, a larger oval crystal. Probably clear, but possibly blue, if I can find the right turquoise color.

Now then... you ready for the Very Big Deal? I'm so proud of this that I can hardly even look at it without going "Squeeeeee!"

Emma's crib is a Forever Bed that converts from a crib, to a toddler bed, to a daybed, to a double bed. She's on the verge of being too big of a girl for the crib, but she had no appropriate blankets for making up a Big Girl Bed, so I decided to try my hand at quilting. Let me just boast for a second: Emma picked out the five fabrics. I swear I didn't help. Kiddo's got the eye for this sort of thing. Here's a close-up of the center square:

I did it all by hand. Every stitch on this freaking thing I did with a needle and thread. Zero machine sewing, and let me tell you: it took longer to sew on the binding than it did to piece the entire top together. I plotted it out on graph paper so that when Emma moves up to the double bed I can just pull the existing binding off, and expand on the existing pattern. I bought enough fabric to make the double bed size, and have the squares pre-cut. I've also got enough left over (by pure coincidence) to quilt 2 standard-size pillow shams.

One thing you can't see in the pictures is the binding, which is the same bright rosy pink color as the embroidery and some of the little flowers in the calico. I'm about to start work on the pillow shams, but I'm having trouble deciding on whether or not to add a center embroidered square.

Also completed was the periodic table pillow, but I forgot to take pictures of it before I mailed it off to Phil, slightly late for his birthday.

In the hopper are a 16x16 inch, stylized 60's print-inspired koi pillow cover, my little pink gramophone (which needed some redesign help) and probably a bird in a cage or a Gibson Girl for my new bedroom.

The Waiting Game

2010-07-12T19:31:00.000-07:00

Well, interview is done. I'd like to think it went well, but I'm pretty biased. I'm also uneasy. I really want this job. And not just because I need it in order to start building my life again, but because it's a job I know I can be good at and excel in. And I feel lately that the more I want something, the harder it is to obtain. But I'm trying to stay positive. I'm trying not to let my nature take over.

Unfortunately, I can't even hope to know anything until next week, at least. And it's only Monday.

Here's another issue. I feel like it's okay to share it now that I've jumped the first hurdle. This position? It's in a church office. I feel like a little bit of a fraud there. In defense of the incredibly nice pastor that interviewed me, I was not asked about my religious affiliation. Technically, I'm a member at one of the many the local Baptist churches, and I did tell him that I was raised Baptist. I did not lie. I did not say that I was currently a believer. If I'm asked outright, I'll be honest and tell them that I'm an atheist and hope that they don't hold it against me. Really, it's not only illegal to ask, but it's also illegal to refuse me the job because I'm not a believer. But there are all sorts of ways to ask without really asking. And I'm afraid of what an admission of my atheism would do to my chances.

This is a great opportunity for me, if I'm able to get it. To be able to spend my days designing bulletins, posters, and programs. Writing weekly newsletters, creating powerpoint presentations, getting paid to play in photoshop all day long. And then, there's the people aspect. I would be in charge of planning the large events for the church, which is something I'm aces at. Event planning... when I was 18, I planned my sister's entire wedding. And I made all of the floral arrangements. Got them to the church, did all the decorating, and made sure it was all set up. And then when monsoon-style rains flooded half of the streets surrounding the hotel where the reception was being held, I got the word out for alternate routes, and made sure people got where they needed to go. And loved every minute of it. I thrive on deadlines and stress. I adore multi-tasking and projects. Since I'm a little bit too old to realize my acting dreams, I'd love the chance to make this one come true. I really want this job.

Like I said, the interview went well, I think. The Pastor was a funny, genial guy that I felt I had a quick understanding of. He's an idea guy who needs help making those ideas come to be reality. A thinker, not a doer. I'm a doer. A cheerful doer. A happy to assist you doer. A "how can I make that happen for you" doer.

I asked all of the questions I needed to ask, and I can't think of a single thing that I said in answer to his questions that I wish I could take back. And I'm sure I won't be saying anything at all shocking to you when I say that most of my interviews have a moment like that. Where I give a mental facepalm and say to myself, "Are you serious? That's your answer?" I feel as though there are aspects of this job in which I have a real edge.

For instance. There are a few odd catch-all sorts of responsibilities, one of which being the management of housekeeping and maintenance. I have actual on-the-job experience with this. The job that fell out from under me when I was 24 - the one that I lost right before I became homeless - was exactly that. Office manager at a custodial company. My job was to run 10 housekeeping and maintenance teams all over Austin. How many people applying for this job can say that? None, I hope.

So, here's hoping. I get to spend the rest of the week battling with my insecurities, and crossing my fingers, hoping that I get that phone call or email saying that they'd like me in for the second interview. And then I get to start all over again.

Oh, anxiety. This facet of you has been gone from my life for so long, and yet... I feel like you never left at all.

Deep Breath

2010-07-12T13:55:00.000-07:00

Okay, guys. Here we go.

Fingers crossed, y'all

2010-07-09T14:17:00.000-07:00

I had a phone interview yesterday that resulted in a call back. So, that means a face-to-face interview Monday at 2, and if that goes well, a third round after that, and then hopefully, being hired.

I don't want to give too much away (don't wanna jinx myself, you know) but it's for a creative assistant position. A good portion of my job would be graphic design. And, it is literally across the street from the apartments I'm determined to live in.

I'll keep you posted.

I never really knew myself until I tried to decorate my bedroom

2010-07-08T22:54:00.000-07:00

I never knew I could be so wishy-washy. As you know, in an effort to keep my spirits up during the increasingly futile job search, I've been decorating Imaginary House. The whole place is complete in my head, and I've been saving links like mad for the inspirations and purchases that will be living with me for what I hope to be a very long time.

The stumbling block has been my bedroom. For me, a bedroom is a reflection of who you are. It's the place that nobody ever sees but you, unless you open the door and invite them in. A living room has to have public function. So do the kitchen, the dining room, the bathroom.... everything has to have a game face on. The bedroom, though, where you do some of your most private things, should be comfortable as well as a perfect expression of who you are.

Once upon a time, I wanted a room that was black and baby pink and gray. But at the time, I was living with my ex-husband, and he wouldn't let me decorate with that much pink, no matter how modern it was. So I settled for everything in various shades of coffee colors, and it was boring, but I loved it anyway. When we divorced, I started thinking about my pink and black and gray room again - sleek, ultra-mod, with lots of white to accent. But then I lost my job, then my apartment, and my whole world went down the tubes for almost 2 years.

When I finally struggled back to my feet, I dreamed again of my someday-room. But, I was living with Jason, who was quite literally insane, and he wouldn't let me use pink either. He wouldn't even sleep on pink sheets! So, I fell back onto the spices of the Orient, and had a red, orange, black, and yellow room. When he finally snapped two years into our cohabitation and tried to kill me for turning down the volume on the television at 4 in the morning, I kicked him out. And, in a fit of cleansing, sold everything I owned that he had ever touched or looked at. It was great, but it left me with another blank slate, and only bargain-bin money to work with.

Again the dream of the ultra-modern bedroom, but this time it was hot pink and black and charcoal gray. Then, I saw an awesome quilt that was bands of burgundy satin, gold velvet, black lace, and random thin strips of flowered tapestry. I abandoned my black and pink and gray room in favor of something that looked like I'd slaughtered a Victorian hooker and spread her all over the place. Looking back, it was spectacularly tacky, but I loved it so much. That bedroom may be gone, but I still have the quilt. It's still tacky and still awesome, but it's no longer me.

So now, when faced with the blank slate again, I'm finding myself totally confounded. Everything I've looked at is either too masculine, too flowery, too bright, too subdued, too mature or too juvenile. I've wondered - though the actuality of a room of my own is still quite far away - if I would ever find just the right thing. All I need is one item to inspire me. One thing to flip the switch in my imagination, and everything else will just start falling into place. I know myself. I know how I work. So why is it so hard to find something that expresses that? I started to think I was just completely out of the lines of fashion.

Then, I saw this:

and I knew that was the bed. I had no idea how I was going to decorate around it, and nothing that I looked at in terms of bed sets seemed to fit just right. And then, this:

It's pretty much just one big ruffle, with a thin edging of dark gray. One giant, fluffy, cream-colored, cloudlike ruffle. As feminine as you can get, gracing an incredibly masculine, heavy, dark bed.

Pink-and-black-and-gray Bedroom is reborn. This petticoat bed is the big statement, with blush colored sheets, and a little circular mirror surrounded by blush and cream colored flower petals. A flocati rug. Deep gray velvet throw pillows with ribbon-embroidered flowers. Maybe a dress form in the corner.

I had no clue I was so frilly, but when I really think about it, the room that's coming together in my mind is exactly who I am.

Radio Silence

2010-07-06T20:42:00.000-07:00

Sorry I've been so quiet the last few days, but Emma seems to have contracted a horrifying demon that possesses her every afternoon from 5:30 till about 7:30. It makes her fall down on the floor in fits when she doesn't get her way, and sometimes throw things, or sweep an entire table of dinner dishes off onto the ground. I think they call it the terrible twos. She's lucky she's so damn cute the rest of the time, because it's the only thing keeping her alive for those two hours a day. I have an understanding, now, of why some parents choose to spank. It's stretching my nerves to the snapping point but, no matter what, I will not spank.

Oh, and also? Parents are going to separate, I think. Dad's slipped the d-word into a few conversations lately, like he's testing the water. I guess Mother doesn't want to move back here to Temple. She wants to stay in Dallas and do her own thing after she graduates school in November. His exact words were, "That's fine. Divorces are cheap."

I told him that if they split, he gets custody of Emma and I. He snorted, "Uh... I think you aged out of the system a few years ago."

"Yeah, but when the time comes, just know I'm on your side."

"There aren't any sides to take."

"Yeah, you say that now, but you've never been through a divorce with Mother before. If you guys split up, this will be my fourth time. Trust me. There will be sides." As if he could expect anything else out of her but drama.

She came home swearing up and down that she was suddenly afflicted with rheumatoid arthritis. "All of the sudden, all of my joints ache whenever I'm on my feet for very long."

"Really, Mother? You don't just think that it's a sign of old age? Not to be a bitch, but you are pushing 60."

"No! There's a guy in one of my classes who's 67, and he runs track every day without problems!"

"Yeah, that doesn't sound like he's spent the last 15 years sitting on his ass in front of a computer, playing World of Warcraft 18 hours a day and eating a pound of peanut butter M&M's every night the way you have, either."

She went to the doctor. Guess what? She doesn't have rheumatoid arthritis. Or sciatica, which she also tried to claim. He told her to take some aspirin or ibuprofin when her joints ache, but there's nothing wrong with her other than being 56 years old.

She called my brother ans sister and told them she thinks she has fibromyalgia. They were, of course, awash with pity for her, and spent almost two hours consoling her as she sobbed into the phone, and Dad and I rolled our eyes.

She goes back to Dallas tomorrow, thank fuck. I can't wait for her to be gone.

Turn around and go back the way you came

2010-07-01T08:57:00.000-07:00

I had a very unsettling conversation yesterday. I was on Yahoo Messenger, something I rarely do anymore, talking to a new girlfriend in Alabama about a really horrifying post we'd both been alerted to on another blog (it took a passage from Cesar Milian's webpage about training dogs, and inserted woman/wife/she/her in place of the word "dog". The writer, who is a woman, said that husbands should utilize it to train their wives in submission. It makes me sick.). And what should come, out of the blue, but a PM from Brady, Emma's bio-dad.

Was he asking how his daughter was? Nope. Asking to see a picture of his firstborn? Hell no. No, he said to me, "I still have you on my contact list, and saw your display image. You're looking really good. We should get together sometime."

Stupidly, I felt a little leap in my chest. Was he ready to man up and be a father? I knew I'd have to be careful letting him in, if that's what he was trying for. It would be too simple for him to really hurt her if he tried to walk out again. So I said, "And what do we have to talk about?"

I was hoping his answer would be something about Emma. No. "Well... I'm single now..."

I couldn't believe it. The "man" who'd walked out on our dying child, who tried to deny her... it sounded an awful lot like he was hitting on me. I probably could have played it cooler. If I'd kept my head a little more level, I might have been able to talk him into seeing his daughter. But why should I have to scheme to get him to do the right thing? And how fair is it to my girl to know that Daddy only comes around because Mommy tricked him?

I let him have it with both barrels. I called him a coward, I called him pathetic. I told him in graphic detail about her surgeries, and everything that I had happily given up for our child. I made certain that he knew that the only way my face should ever enter into his mind is if he's having a fantasy about stepping up to the plate and being a man. And even then, he should just go ahead and let it go, because as long as I lived, I would never let him near her. He made his bed. Time to lie in it.

His response? "Hey, I didn't say hi to you to start a tiff."

I thought my head was going to explode. I could feel my heart pounding in every pore of my skin. He's so lucky this was an internet exchange. Actually... Emma's the lucky one. If I'd seen him in the flesh, and he had said this to me, he'd be dead, and I'd be in jail. I would actually have crammed his head up his own ass, I think.

"If you thought you could just come back into my life in any capacity without causing a 'tiff', then you're dumber than I ever dreamed. And to turn your back on my daughter, you'd have to be pretty fucking stupid."

I'm proud of my reaction to him. I burned a bridge in a serious way... there's no coming back from this. But I really don't care. I'm at peace with my decision to raise Emma alone.

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

2010-06-29T09:54:00.000-07:00

I'll start with the bad, move on to the ugly, and end with the good from Sunday's BBQ.

The Bad

Mother: I can't eat this, it goes against my diet
Me: Mother, it's a steak.
Mother: I know, it's against my diet. I can't eat it.
Me: .... You just ate four brownies and a giant bowl of ice cream
Mother: So? Chocolate is good for you!

We have a family wall in the entryway. On it, are framed photos from our childhoods, mainly major life-events. One of those photos happens to be of my brother with his date for senior prom. With another girl. A girl named Sarah. The girl that my brother should have married. The girl he actually asked to marry him, but she said no because they were 22, had been dating since they were freshmen in highschool, and she wasn't ready. Every single one of us still talks to, and is friendly, with her, though not in an overt way. It's not like she's invited to family functions. Nicole attempted to physically remove the picture and hide it. I caught her in the act.

Her: I really hate this picture.
Me: It's my brother's prom picture.
Her (getting anxious): But why this one?!
Me: It's my brother's prom picture.
Her (becoming shrill, and shaking the frame at me): BUT WHY CAN'T YOU USE THE ONE WHERE HE'S JUST STANDING ALONE?!
Me, calmly: Because that one is in the dining room.

What I wanted to say: Look, you spoiled-ass bitch. He had a life before you. He didn't just pop into existence because you willed it. Get over yourself.

A conversation with my Type 1 diabetic sister, who lives with an insulin pump, over a pie that I'd made with both her and my Type 2 diabetic grandfather in mind. This is why she's not the caretaker.

Me: I made it with sugar-free jello and sugar-free cool whip. I'm hoping that Papaw will like it so that I can just start making him these instead of cake and stuff. His sugar intake is ridiculous.
Her: Why don't you just stop making that stuff?
Me: Because then he goes to Shipley's at 4 in the morning, buys a dozen chocolate iced donuts and gorges himself sick. This way, I can at least attempt to curb the sugar he gets.
Her: I just don't make any sweets, and the kids live with it just fine.
Me:Your kids don't have a car and cash to go get their own
Her: So confiscate his keys.

My brother in law ignored me completely. If I spoke to him, he acted as though he'd never heard me. If I was talking to someone, he made a point to loudly interrupt and change the subject. Every time I happened to fall within his line of sight, he dished out the stink eye liberally. I have never understood why he hates me so much.

Because it's summertime in Texas, it's hot hot hot. Our house is old, and when the family room is full of adults and little kids running in circles, the A/C doesn't seem to work as well. To combat this, I filled Emma's wading pool up and we let the kids play. Nicole had an attitude because my nephew Landon (who is only 4 months old) doesn't like to swim, so she felt left out. I offered her Emma's tiny little wading pool and a swimmy diaper. Wasn't good enough. They sat outside and she moped loudly about how she felt so left out because her kid was the only one not in the pool.

Landon is very very pale, with red hair, and Nicole was sitting in the full sun. After about 10 minutes, his little face was beet red. I offered he a wet washcloth to drape over his head to help keep him cool. She refused. I offered her my spot n the shade. She refused. I offered her baby sunscreen so that he at least wouldn't burn to a crisp (I'm redheaded. I'm pale. My skin is really sensitive, but not as sensitive as a newborn's, and even I wear sunscreen everywhere I go. Melanoma and squamous cell carcinoma run in our family on both sides).

Her (voice dripping with condescension): Oh, we don't use sunblock. PABA is bad for babies.
Me: It's infant sunblock. It's PABA free
Her: He doesn't need it
Me: Skin cancer runs in our family, and all of the other kids have sunblock on.
Her: He has to build up his melanin somehow, and he can't if we baste him in sunscreen
Me: .... Melanin doesn't work like an immune system... fair-skinned is fair-skinned....
Her: I'M A NURSE!

What I wanted to say: You're a shitty nurse at a shitty hospital other doctors laugh at in conversation for being inept. You can't force a kid to have stronger skin just because you think you know everything.

The Ugly

Shortly after the sunscreen outburst, Nicole turns to me.

Her: So, are you planning to get Emma behavioral therapy?
Me, bewildered: For what?
Her, condescending: Oh, is it not obvious to you? Because it is to me... she's autistic!
Me: ...
Her: Just look at her! Flapping her hands, constantly moving, walking on her tiptoes.
Me: ... she's a toddler
Her: And she's not very verbal, is she? You should have her evaluated for learning disabilities.
It took every ounce of my control not to wring her scrawny neck.
The Good (yes, there actually was some)

Major, to my sister: I love to come to Aunt Feena's house, Mommy. Know why? Because she always has something fun to do. Maddy, to me: Feena, you always cook the best stuff.

Papaw, to me: Well, sugar, I bet nobody else will say it, but I just want you to know what a great job you did, putting all of this together. I really appreciate it, and your Meme would have been real proud of you.

The kids, as they were leaving: Can we come back next weekend? I miss Feena when we're gone, and she's so fun!

I was showing pictures of Future Home to my sister, and she said (without a hint of irony) That's a really beautiful place. If you want, when it's time to shop for furniture, and stuff, I'll come help you.

As we were outside watching the kids, Emma was eyeballing the sprinkler. You could tell she was curious about it, and that she wanted to try it, but she was scared. Major and Maddy, the Best Cousins Evar, each took a hand and said, "Come on, Emmie! Let's go play in the rain!" My sister may have been a major player in the utter destruction of my childhood, but she's done a good job with her kids. They're real sweethearts.

Now, I put this day on my calendar, because I don't think anything like it has ever happened before, or will happen again. My mother and my sister were sitting next to me, watching the kids playing and chatting as Nicole performed her Expert Diagnosis on my daughter. As Nicole accused my daughter of having mental disabilities, their conversation, which had been very lively, screeched to a halt. They both turned and looked at Nicole as though she'd grown 2 more heads.

Mother: What?
Nicole: Well, I was just telling Valerie that....
My Sister: We heard you. Did you just call her stupid?
Nicole: It's just my professional opinion
My Sister: You don't have a professional opinion. You're not a child psychologist
Mother, at the same time as my sister: You know, your husband walked on his tiptoes till he was 5. And Heather (my sister) flapped her hands when she was excited exactly like Emma.
Nicole: I just want what's best for her, and obviously Valerie can't...
Both of them together: SHE'S A TODDLER!

At approx. 2:30 pm CST, did you feel the Earth shiver a little on its axis? Maybe you got a shiver down your spine? That was my mother and my sister, two of the most hateful people in the world, coming to the defense of my daughter.

I leave you with this

SOMEbody needs to say this out loud

2010-06-28T14:29:00.000-07:00

I only wish I had a bigger stage from which to say it. The confirmation of Elena Kagan for Supreme Court began today. This is something that I've been watching closely because, in my opinion, the country has a lot to lose if the wrong person is confirmed. I believe that Elena Kagan is absolutely the correct woman to join the highest court in the nation. She is a woman who will bring an appropriate outlook to the increasingly conservative-leaning bench. Dubya did the nation no favors in the two nominations he made during his ~~dictatorship~~ term in office by trying to consolidate what should be a diverse panel of opinion into one great big southern Baptist, born again, bible-thumping lump of bigotry. Ms. Kagan will be a breath of fresh air, I feel.

I'm not going to get into particulars. She's a complicated woman with a dazzling career as an educator, a law maker, judge, and Solicitor General of the United States. She's no shrinking violet.

Here's the issue I'd like to highlight. There are rumors that she is a lesbian, and that because she may be a lesbian, shouldn't be allowed on the Supreme Court because of the risk that she may show favoritism to the gay rights movement.

What. The Fuck. Let's set aside the fact that she is not an openly gay woman. Is she a lesbian? Perhaps. But until she says to the world "Hi, I'm Elena Kagan, and this is my life partner Patty" then cut the speculation. And, if that's the tactic her opposition would like to pull, then I move that Christians can't be Supreme Court judges either, because they'll favor other Christians. Veterans can't be judges, because they might show favoritism to other military personnel. Straight people can't be judges either, because that could give straights the edge, and Atheists are out as well. Blondes would favor blondes, so they're out. Men would favor men, and women would favor women... there seems to be a pattern!

How about instead of caring about a person's marital status, religion (which has no business in lawmaking in the first place), sex, hair color, style of dress, speaking accent, or region of origin, they concern themselves with the things that actually matter: the person's judicial legacy.

Why is that so hard?

La Roux - Bulletproof

2010-06-25T13:11:00.000-07:00

I really love the Legend of Zelda feel of the music in this song. (I know it's all cut off on some screens.... unfortunately, I can't fix that.)

I think I may have found it, y'all!

2010-06-24T14:00:00.000-07:00

As none of you may already know, I am an expert at cart-before-horse-putting. The first thing I did when Emma got her g-button pulled was start sending out resumes. The second thing I did was start looking for a place to live. Nevermind the fact that once I finally get a job, I'll have to work and save for at least 6 months before I'll actually be able to afford moving out. Thinking about that isn't any fun, and does shit to keep me motivated. Know what keeps me motivated? Home fashion. Identifying my style and then decorating a place in my mind.

I call it "goal-orientation."

Finding a place to live in this town has proven to be really hard, y'all. As I've mentioned in the past, Temple isn't really renter-friendly. There are few apartment complexes, and they are either ridiculously expensive - so expensive that I can't figure out why anyone would live in them, because they're on-par with renting a really pretty house on the lake - or older than I am and horribly maintained. Homes for rent are also scanty, for the same reasons. Either totally out of my price range, or in really frightening parts of town.

I don't think that I have an incredibly long list of requirements for a home. It needs to be in a non-terrifying part of town, close to the hospital for Emma-related emergencies, have central A/C and heating, a dishwasher, washer and dryer hookups, and be in good repair. To me, this is a reasonable list. But I have had one hell of a time trying to find something I like. I found a couple places that would fit the bill, but none that I felt very moved toward. Things that I'd be alright settling for (which I was prepared to do), but nothing that I'd feel very settled in.

So last week, Emma was having a rough day. Papaw's answer to her being a grump is always "Let's go for a drive!" And I generally agree, because not only does it work wonders for her to get out and about, but I'm also working on learning how to navigate the town, so that I can identify general areas when I hear some landmarks. As an added bonus, there was a brand-new stretch of freeway, and Papaw was dying to drive on it. This took us into an area on the eastern outskirts of town that I'd never been before.

Mostly, there were fields of corn or cotton, or pastures full of horses and cows, a landscape dotted with ancient Live Oaks and ranch houses. I sat back and enjoyed the beautiful countryside stretching out around me, when a cluster of buildings started to come into my field of vision on the right-hand side of the car. A very new apartment complex literally in the middle of a field. I took note of the name, so as to look it up when we finally got home. I expected to find that it was too expensive, or a retirement village.

Imagine my surprise when I accidentally found what seemed to be the perfect place.

It's a townhome complex. It was built in 2007, and fell at the shallow end of my proposed budget. Meaning I didn't have to be quite so picky with my job choices. I looked at everything their website had, and felt incredibly optimistic. Pictures, video-tours, floorplans, the works. I went to sleep that night feeling electrically charged with excitement. I dreamed about decorating. The whole place started coming together in my mind.

For the last week, just for fun, I've been floating around the internet looking at furniture, trying to find something to inspire me. Guess what? Found that, too.

Picture this sofa with bright coral accent pillows bringing out that gorgeous dove gray microsuede. Maybe a coral colored slipper chair to accent. I've already got an Asian-inspired dark-brown wooden console table that will be my computer desk, and an art-deco style cabinet that houses my television. Added to it, this:

which needs some TLC, but I think will be an awesome addition. I had already picked out a really pretty dark wood dinner table from IKEA. It's all starting to come together in my head. I'm calling it Kid-Friendly Elegant. Very art-deco chic, with kid-friendly, scotchguard-able fabrics. Dove gray with splashes of coral and chocolate brown.

I'm so stoked. I can't even verbalize.

UPDATE: Emma had an early-morning visit with her cardiologist (She was given a clean bill of health, btw. Dr. Pliska actually said the words "completely normal heart". Aside from a routine 24-hour heart monitor next week, she's in the clear. Wow.) and on the way home, Papaw decided that we needed to do another drive-by on the apartments I love. This time, he wanted us to go visit a friend of his who has lived in the complex since it was built. She wasn't home, but we did take a tour around the grounds, and I felt it. That little tug in my gut that says "This is it." I've found our home. It's still a way down the road for us, but knowing that it's sitting there waiting gives me the drive I need to keep hunting for work!

They're Comiiiinnnnggg!!!!!!

2010-06-23T14:33:00.000-07:00

Life is very much like a horror movie. Never ever say that things can't get any worse (because they always can), or complain that things are boring (because they'll get wild real quick). Tempt those fates, and see what happens. My entire family is descending upon my home on Sunday. I wish I could say that they were uninvited and therefore unwanted, but I must admit; I did this to myself. All I wanted to do was spend some time with my new nephew, Landon.

My brother and his ~~miserable bitch~~ wife live almost 2 hours away, and travel with a newborn is tough. I know, I've been there. The only thing tougher than traveling with a 3 month old is traveling with a 21 month old. When your baby is still in (what my family calls) the meatloaf stage, they're sleeping a lot. And since they haven't yet learned the joys of having a free range of motion, sitting in a car seat with a dry diaper, a full tummy, and some nice air conditioning is pretty much heaven. The hard part is all of the crap they require. The trunk of your car ends up looking like you're a refugee escaping the zombie apocalypse.

Toddlers, on the other hand (particularly mine) dislike the idea of not moving. Emma is great in the car for about an hour. Beyond that, she's bored, she's grouchy, and she needs to stretch her legs. She doesn't require as much stuff, but she needs more stimulation. I don't know about you, but I'd rather heft around pack-n-plays, bottle warmers, extra clothes in case of diaper blow-outs, diaper bags, and blankies than spend 2 hours in the car with an angry toddler.

The result is that neither of us is very willing to travel long-distances without a really good reason, and we both have excellent excuses for feeling that way.Because of that, I haven't seen my baby nephew since he was born in March.

As I mentioned on the post wherein I foolishly scoffed at the gods for giving me a boring lull, my mother comes home from school on Saturday for (I think) a two-week break between quarters. The last time she was here was Easter. I tried to get my siblings and their kids over for a Memorial Day barbecue, but was shot down. They didn't come right out and say it, but it was heavily implied that my potato salad wasn't worth the drive. Mother's homecoming, however.... Plus, I played dirty with my niece and nephew. When I called my sister to see if she'd bring the kids, my nephew Major answered the phone. I kinda blackmailed him with home made ice cream to whine til my sister said she'd bring them. I don't feel bad about this. Not even a little bit.

See, if my older sister comes, my younger brother will as well. That's just how they are. They live in neighboring towns, so they see each other constantly and are pretty much best friends with one another. I used to think that I was jealous of that, but I've recently come to terms with the fact that they're both pretty selfish and judgmental people who care way too much about what other people think. I'm only jealous of the fact that Emma winds up the odd man out. Mind you, her older cousins think she's the greatest, but they don't get to spend the kind of time together that I'd like. Emma won't be as close to her cousins as they will be to each other. That makes me sad.

So now, I'm going to be descended upon by hoards of ungratefulness (and three cute kids) on Sunday. My sister and sister-in-law loooooooove to gossip. They adore picking apart everything about me. It doesn't matter if it's a flaw that they wouldn't bother to notice in anyone else. If I'm doing a single thing that they thing should be different, it becomes grist for the rumor mill. It's only Wednesday and I've already obsessively dusted every surface, vacuumed every rug, mopped, swept, and scrubbed everything the eye can see. And some things that it can't.

Example? This:

The Rain Lady. There's a reservoir of mineral oil in the top and in the base. When you turn it on, it feeds droplets of oil down thin wires, and it looks like it's raining on the statue inside. Today, while Emma napped, I took it down from the hook it's been hanging from for literally 30 years, emptied the oil, and painstakingly cleaned every single wire, plastic plant, and part of the Lady that was reachable with a toothbrush rubberbanded to the end of a chopstick. This thing hadn't been cleaned in at least 10 years, y'all. So now, I have to go buy some mineral oil at the store, because the junk I emptied out of there was black. Seriously.

A funny part, though. As I've been cleaning like a maniac, Papaw has gone through and gifted me with practically every single antique in the house. As I rubbed Old English into my great-grandmother's bureau, which had been a wedding gift to her and my Daddo in 1918, he says "I think that's the first time anyone has actually polished that in maybe 20 years."

"Really? That's a shame. It's really beautiful."

"You like it? It's yours. I know you'll take care of it."

The antique pendulum clock that hangs on the wall above it? I love to hear it tick-tock, so I wind it every night before I go to bed. I was cleaning the gears, and Papaw said the same thing. "You're the only one who seems to care about that thing. You want it? It's yours."

The walnut mantle clock over the fireplace? Mine. The southern lady-shaped vase on the bookshelf? Mine. The china cabinet/buffet that barely fits in the dining room? Mine, if I want it. The funky-awesome stick-light with the hobnail milk glass shades? Totally mine. When I said that Mom and everyone else would have a problem with that when the time came for me to claim it all, he said, "Well then I guess they should be the ones cleaning them, huh? Tell 'em to blow it out their butts!"

These things are why I am able to put up with the crotchety old grump he's becoming. These flashes of Old Papaw.

All of the heavy-duty is done now. All I have to do is maintain. And try not to lose my mind.

Father's Day in the Future

2010-06-20T21:54:00.000-07:00

Father's day went well in our house. Neither Dad nor Papaw really likes a fuss to be made, so it was relatively quiet. I woke up at a very early hour to make biscuits from scratch, baked in a cast-iron skillet (my great-grandmother's. I'm not kidding when I tell you that thing is 107 years old.), before Papaw left for church. I'd grilled him and grilled him on what I could do to honor him on Dad's Day, but he refused to give me anything to go on.

This was one of the instances in which I was actually thankful for his regular complaints about how much better the food at (insert place-that-isn't-my-kitchen here) is than what I make for him, because it gave me a hint. Papaw's got a lady-friend, and one day, he went over to her house to have coffee, and she had made skillet biscuits. I heard about this every weekend for nearly 3 months. How he'd missed the taste of fresh biscuits baked in an iron skillet, covered in molasses. His mother, who died of breast cancer when he was 16, used to make heaps of them every Sunday morning. They were his favorite thing.

So, since he refused everything else I offered, I made him biscuits and molasses. It's the first time in a long time that he's eaten my food without telling me how much better it is someplace else. He even said that my biscuits were every bit as good as my Meme's, which is the absolute height of praise from Papaw. The day began well.

Dad was easy to please. For his birthday dinner back in March, he'd asked me to make him German supper. So I made rotkholsalat (red cabbage slaw) sauerbraten, German cucumbers (god I love that stuff) and dampfkartoffeln (boiled potatoes, German style). I'd barely even finished the question of what he wanted for Father's Day dinner when he asked for Birthday Supper, episode 2. Simple, delicious, and everybody was happy.

Things were going really well, until we got into A Discussion.

Papaw lacks tact. I'd like to say that it came with his old age, but I don't think it did. I can always remember Papaw asking things that were shockingly out-of-place or nosy, and my Meme chiding him for it, so I'm pretty sure that he's just one of those sorts. Frankly, it's hilarious, unless the questions are aimed at you. Today he asked, "What're you gonna do when Emma starts to ask questions about her father?"

It was like someone had dumped a bucket of cold water over me. That's such a sensitive subject, and one that I've gone over with my own dad a million times, against my will. Brady knows about Emma. He was there in the hospital with her for the first couple of weeks, until the day she tried to die. That was when he decided that he couldn't handle it, and walked away. He stopped answering my phone calls, he stopped replying to my emails, and he tried to fall off the face of the planet.

When Emma got her chest tubes and her health started to take a turn for the better, I decided to give him one more chance. I went to his house, I told him she was doing better, and that the doctors were finally feeling optimistic. His answer? "Nobody in my family has ever had heart problems. I don't make sick babies. She isn't mine." and he closed the door.

Now, she most certainly is Brady's daughter. She has his smile, his fine, chestnut curly hair, his lanky build. She's even left handed, just like he is. Similarities aside, there simply isn't any possible way for her to belong to anyone else. He was the only person sharing my bed. Half of Emma's genetic code most assuredly came from him. Period.

Here's where Dad and I disagree: Dad thinks I should force Brady into fatherhood. That I ought to go after him for child support and make him take part in her life whether he wants to or not. I feel like that's the wrong way to go about it. He had his name removed from her birth certificate. He walked out on her. He didn't want her. He wasn't strong enough to put his own fears aside and be there for her when she was at her worst. He didn't have any faith in her when she needed it the most. Why in the world would I wish that on my little girl? Just so that she'll have someone to give a tie to every June? She doesn't deserve a father that doesn't care, and he doesn't deserve a daughter as incredible as mine is.

This is what I always tell Papaw when he asks me that question. And he does it a lot. "I'll tell her that her wasn't good enough for her, so he went away."

Sounds good, right? But then I worry that she'll think I made him go away. Or she'll get mad at me for not making him stay. Or, worse, that she'll develop Daddy issues and we'll both end up on Maury Povich or Jerry Springer with the caption "I Can't Control My Wild Teen!" or "Who's My Daddy?" under our pictures.

When she has a rough night, or she's so clingy that I can't even breathe freely without her on my lap, let alone have the chance to go to the bathroom or fold laundry, I wonder if I made the right choice. And honestly? I don't know. I probably never will.

Boring life makes for boring blog

2010-06-17T17:36:00.000-07:00

Nothing is happening. Emma's doing great (yay!) and behaving like she's made of angels, sunshine, fluffy kittens, and rainbows. No almost-two-year-old has ever been so well behaved in all of the history of time. Sure, she gets into mischief (did you know that a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser takes crayon and marker and colored pencil off of the wall with nary a hint of elbow grease? It's amazing!) but nothing really worth talking about. Plus, I don't want this to turn into a mommy blog.

I'm working on making a quilt for her bed, but I've reached a snag in the binding. I've never made a quilt before, so I probably went about it wrong, and the backing fabric has puckered up as I sewed the binding tape around the edge. I'm waiting to pull the stitches until I've figured out the best plan for solving the bunching issue. I want to do the whole quilt by hand, and so far I have. But I'm afraid that my only recourse may be to resort to the sewing machine, and I stubbornly refuse.

All of my embroidery projects are either completed or stalled out due to running out of floss. Which would be less of a deal if I'd had the forethought to write the color number on the bobbin before winding it.

I did hand-stitch myself a custom handbag, though! That's pretty awesome. I bought a remnant of faux leather on a whim, expecting to use it for book covers for the ever-elusive short-story-and-illustrations book I have in my mind. It cost about a dollar, and I think it had to have been almost 2 yards of material. It's got this really awesome suedey texture, and I couldn't stop touching it. So, for some reason, I decided to make a handbag. Let me tell you, those things are more work than you'd think! Here's a couple of pictures:

I'm pretty proud of the way it turned out. I used it for the first time yesterday, and have decided that I need to add a pocket to the inner lining. Otherwise, it's just a big cavern of lost stuff. I really hope that some random polite person tells me that they like it, so I can tell them I made it myself. I'm really proud of it!

So... Hmm. What else? Nothing, really, and that's the point. I'm looking for work, but there's not a lot of work to be had around here, so it's going to take some very real time to accomplish. Again. Honestly, the area is growing, and the recession as been incredibly kind to this area of Texas. I just live in such a small town that a hiring boom is equal to 4 or 5 positions opening up. But I remain hopeful and as upbeat as I can.All I have to do is think back to how depressed I was at this time last year, when Emma was still on the feeding machine, and god only knew when things would get back to normal. All I have to do is look at her and how well she's doing, and it's no sweat to go back on the job hunt.

But things do get boring around here. I've downloaded all of the television that I've ever missed, and a good portion that I've seen before. Everything is clean, vacuumed, and dusted. Laundry is even folded and put away, and I really really hate folding laundry. I haven't started writing my book yet, because I'm still trying to nail down a plot that I like. All part of the process.

Our city library is pretty lame if you're over the age of 10 and not heavily steeped in religion. The book stores here are tiny and specialized, and I like to read weird shit. So imagine my surprise when I was at the grocery store today, picking up the makings of Sunday's Father's Day dinner, and I found this:

That's right. Android Karenina. Anna Karenina, but with robots. Brought to you by Ben Winters, the mastermind behind Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Pride and Prejudice, but with zombies. Which I haven't read yet, but would really like to once I get my hands on a copy.

So, to kill my boredom, I'm not only going to read this book, but I'm going to do a chapter-by-chapter review of it. It won't be a daily post, but it should at least help break up the monotony.

Oh, and Mother is home from school next weekend, so I'm sure that will generate a few posts.

Done, and... Done!

2010-06-16T14:09:00.000-07:00

When Emma left the hospital, she had a team of 7 medical specialists waiting for her here in Temple. One pediatrician, one cardiac specialist, one GI specialist, two speech therapists, one home health nurse, and one oral pathologist. For the first month, Emma had doctor's appointments 3 days a week, every week. Difficult under any circumstances.

The first one to drop away was the home health nurse. She came daily for the first two weeks, to make sure that Emma was gaining weight, getting all of her meds, and to answer any questions or worries that I might have. After the first two weeks, she came by weekly, just to do weights. After 6 weeks of visits without any incidents, she told us we didn't need her anymore, said her goodbyes, and left. Bye, Nurse Lois!

The oral pathologist worked with the speech therapists as a team to plan the best road to food-ville for Emma. We had weekly evaluations at first, and when it was noted that she wasn't doing any better, and actually seemed to be doing worse with therapy, they stepped it back to a weekly phone call. I'd contact their office every Thursday to give a progress report, and get my questions answered. After three months of weekly calls, the speech therapists decided that I had a tight grip on the situation. Even though Emma wasn't showing a lot in the way of improvement, she wasn't backsliding, either, and had proven that she didn't work well under that level of scrutiny, anyway. Bye, Gina and Joelle!

The pathologist called us in for monthly swallow function studies, to make sure that all of the muscles in Emma's throat were working properly, and to ensure that she was swallowing fully, without accidentally aspirating food into her lungs. In April, she moved the swallow studies to every other month, and after our last visit in August 2009, she announced "This baby will be eating by Christmas. We don't need to see you anymore!" She asked if it was alright for her to follow Emma's case, anyway, just to make sure she stayed on schedule. Bye, Dr. Gandis. You were right. She starting eating right before Thanksgiving. It is now her favorite thing to do that isn't dancing. She often does both at the same time.

That left us with just her pediatrician, Dr. Khan, her cardiologist, Dr. Pliska, and good ol' Dr. Easley, her GI specialist. He was my favorite doctor from the instant we first walked into his office. Of all her docs, he was the most friendly, the most conversational, the most attentive. Always ready with a joke, or a squeeze to the shoulder. He took every worry and woe I had seriously, and never brushed them off as my being hysterical or overreacting. If I was concerned, he was concerned, and we'd get to the bottom of it before Emma and I left his office. When my sister-in-law, the trainee nurse, told me that I was a failure as a mother because I didn't force-feed Emma so that she could get her g-button removed more quickly, he offered to call her and let her know how ignorant she was. Appointments with him were less like medical consultations, and more like having coffee with a pal.

When he left Scott & White to open his own practice, we left with him. It was an hour's drive to Round Rock to make our appointments, but I just couldn't see the reason behind switching docs. He connected with us so well, and Emma loved him (though she doesn't love Nurse Jason. Even though all he ever did was take her height and weight. Sorry about that, Nurse Jason.).

Today, Emma had her last appointment with Dr. Easley. It was bittersweet. On the one hand, he and I are both so happy that Emma's gastro issues are done with, and she's just a normal little kid. But on the other, he's become like family over the last almost-two years. It was sad to shake his hand for the last time, to thank his awesome staff for the last time, and to drive away. He made us promise to send pictures, and made sure we had his e-mail address so we could keep in touch. I gave him Emma's facebook page, which we created so that her past nurses and doctors could see how well she was doing, and he's already made the friend request.

Bye, Dr. Easely. You were part doctor, part shrink, part friend, and completely incredible. As you said when we left your office today, we'll miss you, but we hope we don't ever need see you again.

That's five down. I think we'll keep the other two.

All of this... for THAT?

2010-06-09T11:08:00.000-07:00

So... today. The Big Day. The day in which we traveled to Austin to see Emma's GI specialist, Dr. Easley, to get a timeframe for g-button removal. As expected, I had a really tough time sleeping last night. I knew I would. I'm so terrified of the thought of Emma being back in the hospital and something going wrong that I knew that even once I did fall asleep, my dreams would be troubling. Emma seemed to pick up on my tension, because her night was rough, too.

After my typical rush-to-get-out-the-door, we were on the road and headed to the doctor. Papaw and I talked, tried to keep things lighthearted. He even made a great joke as we passed the IKEA outlet store about maybe stopping there on our way home, so that I could have visitation hours with all my of my future furniture.

We avoided traffic, but it's been raining steadily for the last couple of days, so roads were slick and Papaw's driving is terrifying. I wanted the appointment to come and go. To get this step over with so that I could begin focusing my energy on the real obstacle: the hospital stay.

Dr. Easley's office is new - he just moved from our local hospital to his private practice, so the waiting room was blank and empty. I was dreading a long wait, but I didn't even have a chance to fill out the first page of Emma's paperwork before Nurse Jason was calling our names and taking us back to get Emma weighed and measured.

She did just like last week, and threw a rager of a temper tantrum the instant she was placed on the scale. I don't understand what it is that's so scary about those for her, but they just terrify her! It was also the same story all over again when Dr. Easley tried to check her with his stethoscope. She just was not having it, and it was an affront to her dignity to even assume that she might tolerate such an invasion without raising hell about it. She held on to me for dear life.

We discussed her eating habits, her weight, how her father's ridiculously fast metabolism figured in with her lower weight and taller height. We talked about her lactose intolerance and whether or not she might outgrow it, and ways to try and trick her into eating meat that isn't fishsticks or bacon. Then he said the words that I'd been both hoping for and dreading, "Now, then. I understand you're ready to get rid of this g-button, huh?"

I got nervous. My palms were a little bit sweaty, and I could feel my anxiety rise. "Yeah," I answered, my voice cracking slightly. "I mean, we haven't used it for any feeds or meds since December, so I really don't see the point in having it anymore."

He nodded a bit and looked thoughtful, stroking his beard. "Uh-huh, uh-huh. Well... I agree. Let's pull it out!"

"Alright," I answered, nerves crackling with anxiety and anticipation. "Well, My schedule is pretty open, and we'd like to get it done as soon as we can... get it out of the way..."

"Today soon enough for you?"

I paled. I know I did. I felt the blood rush out of my face. Today? Really? I wasn't prepared for this. I didn't want to stall, but neither was I ready to go to the hospital. I stammered, "I... well... yeah, I guess so. Today's as good a time as any, I guess. What hospital?"

Dr. Easley blinked. He loked at me as though I were just a little bit stupid. "Um, no hospital. Just here."

"Wait, you mean now?"

"Well, yes, Valerie... unless you'd rather come back next week or something. If you're concerned she might still need the button..."

I cut him off. "No, I'm not, I just... I'm surprised, is all. I thought she'd need surgery to get it removed. When she was at Cook's, there was a little boy in the next bed who was in the PICU for three or four days after having his out..."

"Has she had a fundo?" (Info on the Nissen fundoplication. Nothing gross at all, I promise)

"No, thank god, she didn't need a fundo. She just had oral aversion." I answered. I felt like I was in a fog.

"Well then nothing to worry about." He patted the exam table. "Lay her down up here while I get some help holding her hands."

In the end, he didn't even need any kind of instruments. We laid her down, I attempted to distract her with a toy, he grabbed the g-button and with one smooth, firm tug, Emma was free of all foreign objects. It hurt, but the pain cry didn't last very long at all... ten seconds, tops. After that, she was just mad because we wouldn't let her flap her hands around. A little piece of gauze to catch any leakage, dabs of colloidal silver to pusker the stomach-hole shut, a patch of Tegaderm, et voila! Done.

All those weeks of worry about how I was going to keep Little Miss On-the-Go happy in her bed for recovery. All those anxious nights. All those nightmares about ventilators, sutures, and infections. For nothing. I still don't think it's fully dawned on me yet. My daughter is now virtually indistinguishable from any other healthy baby. Her scars from her early surgeries are so faint... and now, this one will be too. For all intents and purposes, we're done!

Now, if you'll excuse me... I've got to send out some resumes. I have a life that can finally be taken off hold!

How did I miss this?

2010-06-07T22:42:00.000-07:00

Actually... I know exactly how I missed it. Pushing Daisies. It was on at the same time as Chuck, and from day one, Chuck has won out. And probably always will, frankly. Even if it means that awesome shows like Pushing Daisies go unwatched until three years after they've been canceled.

Everybody told me I'd love it, and they weren't wrong. I do. I've downloaded it, and have been watching it kind of obsessively all day long. It's so quirky and odd, and I love it. I could give a review. But I'm not going to. Why? This is why.

Lee Pace. Also known as Ned. And he is absolutely adorable. Here. Look at him again.

Wanna see him with a puppy? I do.

He's starring in Marmaduke currently. I'm trying to decide if my new crush on him is strong enough to make me sit through that crap. I'm pretty sure.... no. But gosh he's cute!

Also? Dude. His middle name is Grinner. I find that to be righteous..

UPDATE: I figured it out! It's been nagging at me for days, and I couldn't figure out who he reminds me of. Clark Gable. Not so much that he looks like him, but in his delivery of lines and sardonic eyebrow-raising abilities. Also, Clark Gable was one of my very first crushes. Him, and Sean Connery in Darby O'Gill and the Little People (which scared the pants off me at age 4). Sean Connery also has sardonic eyebrow-raising abilities. Hmm. I'm sensing a trend.

A few choice words

2010-06-04T14:10:00.000-07:00

Rude Anonymous Emailer, I don't know how you got my email address, and I don't really care. I Facebook, Twitter, and post on forums, with that email, so it probably wasn't very hard.

I had thoughts of posting a long response to you, dissecting your email and all of the things you said to me and about me. I thought of using your email to sign up for irritating spam, religious, and porn mailing lists. I thought of responding to you directly via email. I thought of ignoring you. But I decided on this, instead.

If you want to defend my mother, how about you spend a few months getting to know her first. I mean really getting to know her. Then get back to me and tell me if you still think I'm exaggerating or full of it.

You can also take your armchair psychiatry and cram it in your cram-hole. I've had "actual" therapy. Apparently, I've got a pretty good handle on things.

You spend a month Cinderelly-ing for my family and then tell me that I'm disrespectful.

Spend some time in my head, and then tell me that I'm making my own trouble.

Walk a mile in my shoes, brother.

Until then, you can kindly go fuck yourself.

Oh, Thank Spaghetti Monster that's over

2010-06-02T12:00:00.000-07:00

I hate ECHO days. Hate them. With the fiery blaze of 1,000 suns. Not because they take very long, or because they're painful for Emma, or because the techs are cruddy. No, I hate them because it never fails that when we go in for an appointment that's supposed to be the first one of the day, the staff at the children's hospital have always managed to squeeze in another patient 10 minutes ahead of us that then proceeds to take an hour and a half.

Yesterday morning, we all got up at 6:30 to make it to the clinic in time for out 7:15 check in. Because, see, you have to plan to be there in time to wait for 20 minutes. If you fail to check in 20 minutes prior to your actual appointment time, they consider you a no-show and skip you. I know, because in the past, when Emma was tinier and still projectile vomiting if you looked at her cross-eyed, they bumped us for being 3 minutes late for early check-in. Almost two years we've been going to this clinic, and I still don't know why they make you get there early, because they are never running on time. Today, Papaw dropped us off well early enough, and Emma and I still waited for almost 2 hours before we were finally seen.

Bless her poor little punkin heart, Emma sobbed her way through the entire ECHO. It doesn't hurt. It's just an ultrasound of the heart, essentially. Warm jelly goes on the chest, and then the tech uses the wand to take the pictures that Emma's cardiologist needs to make sure her heart is developing properly. For her, it takes about half an hour. But she'd used up all of her little toddler patience in the waiting room, and had none left by the time we got back to see the tech. And even though she was sobbing heartily, my little trooper managed to lay perfectly still, so that the images could be clear.

You'd think that would be the worst of it. That the day could not possibly have gotten any worse. You'd be wrong.

Papaw is a deacon at his church, and one of his duties on Monday mornings is to help count the offerings and deposit them in the bank. Because of the holiday weekend, though, they did their counting today instead. Not a big deal, really... our check-in time was about 15 minutes earlier than Papaw needed to be at the church office, and we'd be finished right about the same time as he was. The plan was for us to call him on his cell phone when we were finished, and he'd come pick us up. So when we were done, I called. And called. And called.

I called his cell phone constantly for half an hour. It would ring 5 or 6 times, and then go to voice mail. I would hang up, count to five, and call again. For half an hour. Then, I called the house phone several times, to no answer. I started to panic. What if he'd fallen again and couldn't get to a phone? What if his insane and terrifying driving had caused an accident and he was injured? I was three miles from home, with Emma and no stroller. In sandals that weren't made for long-distance walking. But I didn't have a choice. Temple doesn't have a real bus system, and neither do they have taxis. I don't know anyone here. I had to walk.

So I hoisted my 25 pound baby onto my hip, slung her 20-pound diaper bag over my shoulder, and started walking, fighting anxiety the entire way, hoping that Emma would behave, and that Papaw was safe. It was excruciating. I'm already heavy and out of shape, and the added stress of another 40 pounds, bad shoes, and oppressive morning humidity had me puffing and questioning my sanity before I'd made it the first quarter mile. At the first mile mark, two of the toes on my left foot had gone mostly numb, and my shoulders were screaming from Emma's weight. I shifted her to ride on top of my shoulders, on my hip, piggy-back... you name it, I carried her that way. She thought it was a blast.

By the halfway mark, the heat and jostling had rendered Emma a sleepy lump on my shoulder. She had a bottle of water and her sun hat, and wasn't even breaking a sweat. I, on the other hand, thought I might die. My lungs ached. My right foot felt bloated and was tingling. I pleaded with karma not to give me blisters. Two blocks from home, a creepy guy offered me a ride. I declined.

Finally, after an hour and a half of walking, I made it home. Emma was happy as a clam, and had started babbling, waving to cars, and pointing at things along the way to tell me their color. Seriously... this is the greatest baby anyone ever invented. She's not just tough, but cheerful in her toughness.

As I came up the back alley and cut to the front yard, I saw Papaw standing quite safely in the yard, flirting with the lady next door. I was standing beside him for almost a full five minutes before he even noticed I was there. I wasn't nice. "So, this is what you've been doing instead of answering your phone?"

"My phone hasn't rung a single time! You never called me!"

I took it out of the carrier he keeps clipped to his belt and flipped it open. 42 missed calls.

"There's something wrong with this phone! It's not ringing!" I checked the volume setting. Full blast.

"I just walked three miles, carrying Emma, in 90 degree weather while you sat there and ignored your phone. I can't even look at you right now." I slammed into the house, trying not to cry. I had been so worried about him.

I laid Emma in her crib to change her diaper and take off her shoes. She was still happy as can be. Papaw came in and said, "Well I'm sorry I ruined everything. I can't help it if I'm old." This is his response to everything. It used to make me feel incredibly guilty, but it doesn't work anymore.

"Old has nothing to do with being oblivious, Papaw. You don't pay attention to anything."

He went into his office and slammed the door behind him. I went to change clothes and get a drink. We still had another doctor's appointment to go to at 1:30. I set my alarm and fell asleep.

On the way to the afternoon checkup, there was roadwork. Papaw nearly side-swiped someone changing lanes without looking or putting on his blinker. He blamed the road crews for not marking the lane closure well enough.

Before leaving the house, I had discussed with him the fact that Emma was going to be going to the same clinic, but a different entrance this time, so using his back roads approach wouldn't work. He didn't say anything. I asked him if he'd heard me, and he snapped that he was old, not stupid, and yes he had. Apparently not, because I had to divert him halfway to the clinic and remind him that we couldn't go the way he wanted to go. He told me to shut up and let him drive. He then drove to the wrong entrance and snapped at me for not telling him soon enough that he was going the wrong way. Once we got inside, I made him sit on the other side of the waiting room. I just couldn't be around him.

Thankfully, this side of the clinic schedules things better. You still have to get there 20 minutes prior to your appointment, but that's because they so often run ahead. I had barely had the chance to fill out the check-up sheet when Emma's name was called. Poor little boodle was not a happy camper.

She cried when we sat her on the scale to get her weight. She went haywire when we laid her down on the measuring pad to get her height. She slapped the nurses hand when she tried to measure her head. When her pediatrician came in to check her, she was afraid of the otoscope, afraid of the stethoscope, and didn't want to let him check her for hernias. And this wasn't even the hurty stuff! She still had four immunizations and bloodwork to get through. But she did. She got through it like a champ.

She cried and sobbed, and told the nurses they were bad and mean. Afterward, she clung to me like I was going to abandon her at any moment. At the bloodwork lab, she cried as soon as she saw the tourniquet, but I held her on my lab and kissed on her. Even though she cried, she held very very still, and the girls that had to stick her did an incredible job. It took us longer to sign in than it did for them to draw her blood and be done. And she doesn't even have a bruise.

On the way home, I bought her some tater tots (an incredibly rare treat) and some pudding. Minus the provoked crying, she has been an angel all day long; smiling, singing, patting, hugging, kissing, and informing me that horses are blue, they go "nnnnuuurrrrrrr", and have noses. At 8:30, she got her pacifier, her juice cup, and her blanket. She stood in the middle of the room, draped her blanket over her nose, and started making the sleepy-sounds. When I asked her if she was ready for bed, she started walking resolutely to her crib. I asked her, "Aren't you going to tell everybody night-night?"

She hollered "Ni-ni!" over her shoulder in a very angry tone, and tried to climb the sides of her crib to get in. She was done.

Now, I'm sitting here at my desk, aching from head to toe, with a mild case of sunstroke. I still can't feel all of the toes on my right foot, and am drinking probably my 30th glass of water in the last hour. But, I didn't have to get stuck with five needles today for reasons I don't understand, or have strange people putting goo on me and poking me, or making me lay in my diaper on cold tables. If Emma can keep cheerful through her crappy day, I'd better suck it up and finish up with mine.

What's this? A recipe?

2010-05-30T08:46:00.000-07:00

We had an interesting conversation around the dinner table tonight. It began with my abnormal fear of turkeys (we lived on a farm while Mother was married to her second husband. Young turkeys still have muscle control over their wattles, and can point at you with them. I found this to be absolutely terrifying when I was about 5 or 6, and have hated turkeys ever since. Every Thanksgiving is like a little revenge mission. A delicious, wonderful revenge mission....) and digressed into how happy I was when we lived on that farm. It wasn't very big... 10 acres only. We had a ton of rabbits, a bunch of chickens, some goats, a duck or two, a vegetable patch, and a corn field. I used to play house in the root cellar, and literally spent all my time outdoors. I would love to have a little piece of land like that now that I'm an adult.

Anyway, we got to talking about my father's (at the time) mother, my Grammy. I remember her being terribly old (Mother's second husband was about 55 when they married, so Grammy was probably 80). She lived in a tiny little 1930's farmhouse in Caufman Texas, and we only saw her once a year. Each summer, mother would send up to visit, one child at a time, for 2 weeks. And oh, what a wonderful two weeks they were. Grammy had a huge deep freezer in her garage, and when you got there, it was full of every single flavor of Blue Bell ice cream they made. Your job for the vacation was to eat as much of it as you could hold.

She had old china cabinets full of beautiful teapots and silver tea services. And if you wanted to play teaparty with them, all you had to do was say so. She'd let you into her closet to find old clothes you wanted to wear, and fill the teapots full of Dr. Pepper.

She had the biggest collection of Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs that any first grader ever saw, and had no problems letting you build entire metropolises across her sitting room. She was a solid pro at fort building as well. Some of the best memories of my life come from the four fleeting summer visits I had with her.

You could stay up as late as you wanted, and she'd make huge breakfasts of waffles and sausage. Grammy taught me how to knit, crochet, cross-stitch, sew, embroider... all of the excellent crafty stuff that I do today, I learned in the summertimes with Grammy. Even though I can hardly remember her face now, my cynical heart is full of warmth at the memories.

At any rate, Grammy made food. Real food. Everything was from scratch, and some of it was incredibly elaborate. But the most delicious thing she ever made for me was chocolate covered saltine crackers. Don't make a face or gross out! I know how odd they sound. Reaction to them is always varied, until I coerce a person to try them out. They're so delicious... I can't even explain. Something about the way the chocolate interacts with the salt in the crackers. You need to make them yourself in order to really get it. And that's the best part! They're also ridiculously simple to make that you could pretty much do it in your sleep! Here's the recipe, kids.

You Will Need:

1 sleeve saltine crackers

2 sticks butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 (12oz) semi sweet chocolate chips

Then:

1. Line a jelly roll pan with aluminum foil. Layer the saltine crackers side by side. Do not overlap the crackers.

2. In small saucepan, melt butter and brown sugar. Bring to a boil and cook for 3 minutes.

3. Pour over the saltine crackers.

4. Bake at 375 degrees for 5 minutes.

5. Sprinkle with chocolate chips. As the chips melt, gently spread to cover the crackers.

6. Allow to cool and harden completely. Break into pieces and store in airtight containers.

I promise you. You won't regret it.

I believe

2010-05-28T12:28:00.000-07:00

"I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen–I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones who look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline of good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of The Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies too. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it."

This is Sam's "I believe" speech from the book that changed my life and the way I look at the world, forever: American Gods by Neil Gaiman. If you ever had a spiritual question, or a doubt, or an inability to reconcile anything to anything, I wish you'd read this book. It's a work of fiction, but also a work of immense truth.

Discriminated against! By my own Comment section!

2010-05-25T20:59:00.000-07:00

So, I started to answer the comments left today in the comment box, and Blogger refused to post it because it was soooooo long. So I'm going to answer it now.

Don't be too hard on Dad for his tactics. I can understand how, to some, the act of calling your daughter and telling her that her mother is dead - just to see how she reacts - would be horribly cruel. But really, all he was doing was calling my bluff. I announced to him that I didn't give a shit whether my mother lived or died. I was very matter of fact. This wasn't a tearful revelation on my part or anything. I just said it. In the same tone of voice that someone might say, "I hear the pollen count is going to be particularly high this spring," or something like that. It shocked him.

See, Dad is my mother's fourth husband. He didn't come on the scene until I was 15 years old. At that point, when Mother hit me, I'd smack her right the fuck back, because I was finally big enough to stand up for myself, and I had just plain had enough. Plus, my older sister was living out of the house, away at college, and she has always been my biggest antagonist. She was the one who would whip Mother up into a frenzy and then sic her on me. She'd get bored and make things up that she knew would push Mother's buttons. Like she'd tell her that I'd called her (my sister) fat. Or stupid. Or lazy. Which I generally hadn't actually done. But because she and my brother are the Golden Children, and I'm the Scapegoat, my mother would leap to her defense and come down on me like a ton of bricks. With my sister gone for the majority of the year, there were significantly fewer outbursts, so Dad just never saw how bad things were.

Add to that the fact that Mother is a consummate liar. She is the best there is at painting herself in the light of martyrdom. Everyone is always out to get her, and she's never even done anything to anybody, ever! The world is just against her. And Dad is a pretty trusting guy. He also does his best to be level-headed and fair. He was on my side more often than not on the few occasions that he witnessed my sister winding Mother up.

And then I moved out at 17, so Dad just wasn't in the thick of it for long. It's only been here recently, when he's seen with his own eyes just how delusional my mother is, that the light of comprehension is dawning on him. He's heard many of the stories of the crap she would pull when I was a kid. Of how she'd run off to go play with her friends and leave me holding the bag of responsibility. And now, he sees her doing it to me again. Exactly the way I've always told him she did. So he's starting to get it.

But until he pulled his "prank," he'd always been convinced that on a certain level, I did care for my mother. He's got a pretty healthy relationship with his parents, so he just doesn't get it. He wasn't treated the way I was. And when you grow up in a generally healthy environment, childhoods like mine are surreal.

He expected to take away one of two lessons from the phone call. Either I would finally realize that I love my mother and allow that to shape my dealing with her from then on, or he would see that I was telling the truth. And that's what he learned. And it's been tough for him. He wants to talk about it, I can tell, but that's a big discussion, and it's hard to get that kind of private time in this house. Between Emma and Papaw, you just can't have a serious conversation. I know he was shocked, and his immediate reaction when I said "Thank God that's over" was "Seriously?That's what you feel?" It wasn't until he said that that I ever even considered he was pulling a fast one on me. I believed him completely. Probably because Mother's patented move when she feels neglected is to wait until no one is home, call 911, then down a handful of pills when she hears the sirens. She's done this three times that I know of in the last 6 years. So, believing that her stunt had finally gone awry was absolutely no stretch of the imagination.

He's incredulous. He'd formed a hypothesis and, certain of the outcome, tested it. And his tests proved that his hypothesis was the polar opposite of correct. And he's going to have to process it. And I'm sure that it'll change the way he thinks of me. And maybe the way he thinks of my mother. I really don't know at all. But if you really want to know, I'll fill you in once we have a chance to talk about it.

... Should I feeel badly about this?

2010-05-24T10:33:00.000-07:00

Several weeks ago, my mother's bank called my dad to demand money from him. She has, yet again, overdrawn her account. Dad found out that she had two secret credit cards that are maxed out and threatening to go to collections, because Mother doesn't have a job to pay for them. Occasionally, she works with a funeral home, transporting bodies around the state, but it isn't something that pays enough to cover her basic expenses at school, let alone all of the ridiculous crap she routinely wastes money on.

Needless to say, dad was pissed. I don't know why, though. He should expect this sort of ridiculousness from her. It's how she works. It's how she's always worked. When I was a junior in high school, we rarely had enough money for both bills and food, but you'd better believe that Mother always had a manicure and new clothes. I didn't get to do graduation because there was no money for a cap and gown. For the record, though, I sincerely didn't care. High school wasn't really worth celebrating for me, but she didn't know that. I was informed of the financial situation and expected to cope. At that time, she and Dad were bringing home paychecks that totaled just under 100k per year. Money should never have been an issue the way it was.

Dad's anger toward Mother for her piss-poor money management skills got very little sympathy from me. I've been trying to warn him for months that when left to her own devices, the woman is hopeless. She just doesn't care about anyone but herself. She doesn't care if her misspending of money means that there isn't enough food to make it through the month here at home. She doesn't care if her desperate need for new clothes means that there isn't enough money to buy diapers for Emma. She doesn't care that her incessant downloading of ringtones and checking email from her cell phone drives her monthly bill up from $30 to $200. She just doesn't care.

So, Dad and I talked about it. Not at length, because I think that the feels like discussing my mother with me behind her back is disloyal. Even though I never say anything to him about her that I wouldn't say directly to her face if I were allowed to. But we did talk long enough for me to say out loud for the very first time what I've been thinking in my head for years. I really don't like my mother as a person.

If she weren't my mother, she'd be the woman in the office that I lied and schemed to get away from. She'd be the woman in the neighborhood that I took alternate routes to avoid. She'd be the lady in the grocery store that I hid from in the feminine hygiene aisle so that I wouldn't have to fake-nice her. I don't like her. The only reason I tolerate her is because I don't want Emma to grow up with no family but me.

"You don't really mean that," he said to me, in an offhand manner. His anger at my mother was usurped by his desperate need to defend her. Like always. "If something happened to her, you'd be sad."

I told him that no, I was really sure that I wouldn't be. I'd feel bad for him, because he'd be sad. My heart would break for my Papaw, having to bury his wife and his daughter. But inside, I'd sing a little song. I think we'd all know what that song would be. Ding, dong, the witch is dead!

This morning, Dad called from the office at 7:30 in the morning. He told me that my mother was dead. He told me that she'd crumbled under the pressures of school, taken a handful of wellbutrin, and her roommates didn't get her to the hospital in time.

He was full of shit, of course. Lying to me to try and make a point. That if my mother were to die, I'd feel bad. But, his ploy failed. I'd like to say that I figured him out, that I knew he was lying. That I remembered what I'd said weeks ago and knew what he was trying to do to me. But I didn't. All I knew was that I felt as though a 10-ton weight had been removed from my shoulders. Relief. Out loud, I actually said to him, "Thank God that's over."

Relief because I know that my mother's care in her old age will fall to me. Dad may be 11 years younger than she is, but he's got multiple sclerosis. He's doing great right now, but realistically, that won't be the case in 20 years. When mother is feeble and dying, I won't be able to trust my brother and sister to take care of her. They'll find ways to excuse themselves from duty, like they do with everything important, coming around just often enough to keep up appearances. Kinda like they do now.

Relief because I wouldn't have to live in the constant fear of her mood swings and bids for attention. Because I don't want to have to spend my daughter's life explaining away her grandmother's childish behavior. Because without Mother to stir the pot, there might be a chance of our family actually behaving like a family for a change as opposed to an episode of Jerry Springer.

Should I feel bad that I don't feel bad? At all?