Not So Bad

I really am not quite as down as I might seem, but house upkeep is a big frustration of mine right now. In order to keep this house clean, that would have to be all I do all day everyday because there is constant pooey all over the place. So, instead of blogging right now, I'm going to go clean the whole house again.

This Is How Uncool I Am

*My house is never 100% clean. There are always piles somewhere, or the bathroom is dirty, or there are a few dishes undone, or Little Chub is playing with the entire contents of her toybox, or..., or..., or...
*We have absolutely NO schedule to speak of, no regularity in pretty much any aspect of, at least my and Little Chub's lives.
*We are not organized or neat
*On top of this, we don't ever even DO anything anymore. Little Chub and I get bored bored bored! I can't wait until the summer, so we can go swimming and stuff, and by then she'll be walking, and maybe she won't shovel sand in her mouth anymore...

Anyway, I'm not really so upset about all of this stuff. Our house is almost always presentable, but we do find it QUITE challenging to keep out the clutter, since our apartment is so small, and clutter reduction often requires at least a little bit of money spent on boxes or bins, or bookshelves, or things like that. Inspired by KT, I think I'll spend the extra couple of bucks on clutter reduction supplies, once I have an idea of how to go about it, and I can sacrifice purchasing something else that I might not need so much. Our biggest frustration with our day to day house cleanliness is the clutter (not that it's horrible, but I hate any of it really and I try not to let it get to me, but sometimes, when I look around and see an otherwise beautiful house, it drives me NUTS). Whule I'm at it, our carpet drives me nuts too, because it is not fluffy, and it is dark, so EVERY SINGLE TINY SPECK shows up on it, meaning, as soon as I'm finished vacuuming, it looks like it needs to be vacuumed again. ARGH! Oh yeah, and our bed is really creaky. That's annoying too.

Now haven't I just brightened your day?

Feeling Like Eyeore

I got kind of tired of putting down everything I eat. Maybe I'll pick it back up later... tomorrow, or 3 months from now, or never...

I've been feeling like there is a little bit more on my shoulders than normal, I don't know why. I've just been getting a little bit stressed about really little things that don't normally bother me, such as:

*My library books that were due 6 days ago (about 7 or 8 of them) that accrue fines of 25 cents a day, each...
*Having to file our tax return and stressing about all of the little things I might be supposed to mention, and trying to remember what year things happened--I don't want to be guilty of tax fraud or evasion...
*Money in general, because even though things are going pretty well, because of a one time student loan we got, we applied for the loan in October and STILL have not received the money, even though the credit for one of the kinds of loans shows on our account, and the other was already approved and we signed the MPN and everything...
*Health insurance, for me and for Little Chub--Little Chub qualifies for California State Health Insurance (Medi-Cal), but since she turns 1 in a couple weeks, she'll be kicked down to Healthy Families, which costs a tiny amount, unless I turn my application in, and since I'm pregnant, our income limit is higher, but I can't turn it in until Peter makes a copy of his paystub, since I can't take a picture of it and print it like I normally do because our printer is out of ink...
*I keep forgetting to send the NetFlix movie out in the mail, which makes me feel like we're wasting money because I'm not maximizing the number of movies we can get each month, but our apartment doesn't have an outgoing mail slot, which gets really irritating because we always have to go find the nearest blue box...
*The little messes that constantly reappear all over the house because I'm the only one who cleans (which is how it always is, but sometimes it just starts to get to me)
*Little Chub knocking over the standing lamp for the billionth time, and having it dent

I think that's all. And you see, that's not even very much going on. Why am I feeling stressed/burdened/mopey? I think I need more vitamin B...

We're going to go play with Little Chub's friend in a few minutes. That should be nice. In the meantime, maybe we'll dash over to the library and turn in the movie and take care of two of those stressors.

Food, 2/1/07

Breakfast:
Toasted Corn Pockets (fake Chex)

Lunch:
Small bean/cheese/sour cream burrito (really small)

Dinner:
Um...some neighbor church friends had us over for dinner. I ate a lot. It was so yummy!

Which reminds me! They had some homemade raspberry jam that one of their grandmothers made, to eat on the biscuits, and after eating some of that, I will never eat store bought jam again! It was SOOOOOOOOOOO good! I want to learn to make my own, except, berries cost a lot. Maybe I'll make some strawberry jam this summer or something... Anyway, they gave me one of their jars of it! Yay! How nice!

Water:
~40 oz

The Other White Milk

I like to consider myself a pretty reasonable person. Logic really appeals to me. I was led to The Lactivist Breastfeeding Blog by Issylthesthlia. The National Pork Board does not seem to be behaving in a reasonable, logical, rational manner! If you don't know what I'm talking about, go to The Lactivist blog. It's always best to hear something straight from the source anyway. I get so riled up when things like this happen, regardless of whether or not it's an issue that I already feel strongly about (and breastfeeding happens to be one that I DO). Needless to say, I am pretty riled up about this! I let the heat of the moment go, and I still feel pretty annoyed. Annoyed enough that I'm considering making my own T-shirt that says "the other white milk" on it, just so The National Pork Board can see that they won't get anywhere by bullying people into complying with their understanding of what infringes on their trademark of the phrase "the other white meat". I, personally, think owning a trademark of a phrase starts to infringe on our First Amendment rights anyway. I realize that they believe they have a foothold because she was actually selling the shirt with the (similar) phrase. She is potentially making money on something that "piggybacks" (that pun wasn't originally intended) on the wittiness of someone from their company a long long time ago, and they alone should be the ones making money on that oh so clever phrase "the other white ____". Right?

Ummm... NO!!! "The other white meat" is such a generic phrase! Milk has nothing to do with meat, or pork, and while the phrase about the milk appeals to us because we already know about the phrase, it does nothing but attract attention to the existence of the phrase, in a light that every human being should see as positive! Who WOULDN'T want to be associated with the healthy aspects and benefits of breastfeeding??? Unfortunately for them, The National Pork Board probably didn't realize that messing with breastfeeding advocates was probably not a very good idea. There are few groups in this country that unite as effectively as pro-breastfeeding women, and some of the things they said in the letter they sent to The Lactivist are only going to aggravate most breastfeeding women and pro-breastfeeding people in general.

And then of course, who would I rather sympathize with, in a battle between a large profiting national company that exploits pigs and a small blogsite that donates its income to a Mother's Milk Bank? That's not a tough choice for me...

Food, 1/31/07

Breakfast:
Bowl of Reeses Puffs

Lunch:
Leftover pasta from the night before
~8oz Cocoa Energizing Soy Protein w/ supplements
A few small chunks of cheese (meant for the baby)

Dinner:
TWO bowls of Reeses Puffs
More small chunks of cheese

Snack:
A pear
More chunks of cheese
4 bites of Peter's burrito

Water:
~40 oz

Notes for yesterday: Cereal was a bad thing to have for dinner. Even though I had two bowls, I was hungry again in a couple of hours. Then, the pear didn't fill me, and the cheese didn't satisfy, and it wasn't until I had a few bites of Peter's burrito (a REAL meal food, for me anyway) that my brain said Ahhhhh. The pear was really yummy though, and I still think it will normally be a great snack. But, all in all, I am very embarrassed about what I ate yesterday...

Life Lessons

Okay, obviously I have spent way too much time on the computer today! (This is partly because of Little Chub's early birthday present, which I will probably post about tomorrow...)

Today, I have learned at least TWO valuable life lessons:

#1: Don't do things in the heat of the moment.

Don't you hate when you do something really stupid without thinking about it, and later you feel really idiotic because you are slightly more in possession of your faculties? See blog entry below, titled "Is this bad?" What was I thinking? Peter will probably be super embarrassed on account of ME! And I already feel super embarrassed on account of me. Dumb dumb dumb... If I waited just five minutes, I highly doubt I would have sent that email.

#2: Sugar turns kids into monsters.

Well, she was a cute monster anyway. I went shopping yesterday. I was hungry. I bought...(thunder cracks)...a sugary cereal. More sugary than Frosted Mini Wheats, which at least are mostly shredded wheat, even if they have sugar. I bought Reeses Puffs. I couldn't wait for breakfast today so I could have that cereal! Then, since Peter was gone for dinner tonight, I had two bowls of it for dinner too! I was thinking about eating that cereal ALL DAY LONG! At first, Little Chub was eating grapes, while I chomped away at my scrumptious Reeses candy-in-the-form-of-a-cereal. But, she got a hankering for my Reeses, so I gave her a few. Then a few more. Then a few more. And then I accidentally poured about a cup of the cereal on her highchair tray. Oops! The second she saw it all pouring out, she LUNGED forward and grabbed for it, and started shoving handfuls into her mouth. Before this, she had been meticulously grabbing puffs one by one. So, I had to help her out and I had some handfuls too. The sad thing is, after the cereal, she picked up a piece of grape and then made a sour face and spit it back out. Her sucrose filled grape was too sour after having her Reeses candy-in-the-form-of-a-cereal. Now she's done with them, and I think she wants out of her highchair now...

My Moses Complex

So, my biggest fear (with regards to myself) happened today. Someone from church emailed me and asked me to say the opening prayer in Sacrament meeting. This might sound like something small to you, but, I get nervous praying in front of anyone but my husband (and even that has taken some getting used to!). I just don't feel confident about it. Really, I'm not confident SPEAKING in front of people if the words have to come from my own head, at the moment, rather than being written or something. If we wrote prayers down on paper and read them (besides the fact that it would be a canned prayer), I would be much more comfortable. I would still be nervous, but it would be more like other people's nervous, not MY nervous. I CANNOT speak in front of people. My mind goes completely, utterly, 100%, totally, entirely blank. Well, maybe that's not true. I'm probably thinking something like, "What's that loud pounding sound in my ears? Is someone hitting my head with a hammer?"

This is where Moses comes in. You know how the story goes? If not, refer to Exodus 4:10-16. Moses feels incompetent about speaking to the people, the Lord tells him he can do it, but Moses still says he can't, so the Lord gives him Aaron as a spokesman. Besides the spokesman part, I feel like this. I KNOW I should be able to do it. But public speaking is such a fear and weakness for me that I just can't do it! This is what I told the woman who asked me to pray. I apologized, and I feel really bad about it, but it makes me want to ditch church or run away. My heart beats faster just thinking about thinking about it. And you have to give me some credit--we spoke in church in September, and I fully intended to have an outline for my talk and not read the talk. I practiced trying to come up with a few words, just with Peter! and I couldn't. I can't speak from my mind when I'm on the spot! So, for my actual talk, I even wrote out some sentences introducing us to everyone, and when I got up there, I was unable to deviate from what I had written down. I tried to think of something to say, and I couldn't. I read my talk, and it went well, and people said I seemed cool as a cucumber, even though I was nervous.

That makes me think that those nerves are the nerves other people experience. My praying or speaking from my head nerves are a PHOBIA. I was reading a book once, about panic attacks and such, and it said if you fear something enough to radically change your behavior to avoid it, that's a phobia. So I've decided I have a "saying something from your head in public" phobia. And I've been working on it! In the last year, I prayed once in Relief Society, and once in Sunday School. That was REALLY scary! If I have the closing prayer, my heart pounds for the WHOLE meeting. But I'm proud of those steps. My goal is to be able to pray in Sacrament meeting by the time it will be an example to Little Chub. And that scares the HECK out of me. (Can you tell I feel strongly about this, with all these CAPS?)

Yeah, so anyway, I just had the wind taken out of my writing sails by receiving a reply to my email to Peter's head TA about his birthday. He's sorry, but there's nothing he can do because everyone has complicated schedules. They're meeting at 4 (and it makes me wonder if that was the original time, or if he moved it a little). And he says if they work well and fast, they might finish by 6 or 7. And they're having pizza! Peter won't be able to resist eating pizza (he'll be hungry!), and there will be no point in going out to dinner. :o( This makes me cry. Oh well. I knew grad school wasn't going to be bunches of daisies anyway, and it's been much less dog-poopy than I expected it to be. We're blessed that things have worked out so nicely so far as it is. At least he passed the Quals, and he didn't have to put nearly as much time into that as we thought he would!

Sigh. I'm still sad though.

Is This Bad?

So, Peter is TAing this quarter, and all of a sudden early this week, he found out that he has to grade the midterm (with several other TA's) this Friday, which happens to be his birthday. The head TA asked them all to put in their votes for what time to start the grading, with starting times ranging from 12:30-5pm, and the grading taking 3-5 hours. This didn't seem so bad at first--we figured he could vote for 12:30, and maybe a lot of people would also vote for earlier, because, who actually wants to spend all Friday night grading anyway? I also told Peter he should tell the head TA it's his birthday, and maybe he will have pity on him.

Well, unfortunately for us, nobody could agree on a time, so no matter what time the head TA chose, someone was going to get screwed (pardon my strong language). Really unfortunately for us, he chose 5pm, and Peter has a lecture from 2:15-3:45 before that, and a discussion before that... So, birthday plans would be out. Except--here's where my question comes in--I emailed the head TA. (Peter forwarded me the head TA's decision.) This is what I said:

"Hi--

Sorry to email you even though you don't know me. This is Peter Lewis' wife, and he has no idea I'm emailing you, and was too polite to tell you, but Friday is his birthday, and we actually have dinner plans for around 6pm. Is there any way this can be accomodated? I understand if there's nothing you can do, but we've been looking forward to celebrating his birthday.

Thanks!"
and signed my name

I really wanted to be more strong about it and say,

"I don't know what you're thinking having a grading session so late at night, ESPECIALLY on a Friday! I know this may be an inconceivable thought to you, but SOME people actually have families! Friday is my husband's birthday, and you better let him out of this or you're going to pay!"

To be fair to him, he had no idea it was Peter's birthday on Friday, and he probably has no idea that Peter has a pregnant (and therefore emotional) wife and a baby. Even so, it probably wouldn't be fair to everyone else to think about us when making schedules anyway. But, I'm hoping something will come of it. Maybe he'll let him go early.

I don't mind when Peter is gone a lot. The part I hate the most is when he always has to be gone at night. Which happened last night, and is happening tonight. Hopefully not tomorrow night! Mostly, I want to at least be able to celebrate his birthday with the dinner plans we have (thank goodness it's not a reservation!). Birthdays are really important to me!

Anyway, what do you think?

Little Chub Cheers for the Wildcats!

Watch Little Chub cheer!



Please let me know if this does not work for you.

Food, 1/30/07

Looking bad for yesterday. Not necessarily A LOT, but just not so healthy-ish.

Breakfast:
Bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats (can you tell this is all I have left?)

Snack:
A handful of tortilla chips

Snack:
Peanut butter granola bar

Dinner:
Pasta with broccoli, chicken, alfredo sauce, and cheese (ummm...I couldn't stop eating this, and neither could Little Chub! I had to make a quick dinner so Peter could go to school to study)

Water:
~40 oz (dang it!)

I'm IT.

Oh no! I was tagged! Thanks a lot Real. The funny thing is that I don't actually have any friends to tag... It's true. I really am that much of a loser. But it's okay. I'm fine with that. I read on the meme rules that I can just answer the meme questions without tagging anyone. So, here goes:

Rules for the meme:
1. Find the nearest book to you.
2. Name the book and author.
3. Turn to page 123.
4. Go to the fifth sentence on the page.
5. Copy out the next 3 sentences and post to your blog.
6. Tag three other people.

Answers:
The nearest book to me was Freedom's Landing by Anne McCaffrey, which is not a co23inc2idence (thank Little Chub3 for the numerical insertions) because I actually just started this book this morning. So, Real (what does Real mean for you anyway?), I will be very upset if these sentences give away very important information!!

"It wasn't easy to do, given the sort of indestructible fabric it was. Kris had to stop: her wrist ached and was next to useless. But hauling folks to the top of the crates with the help of a rope would be a lot easier."

Looks like you're in luck! I have no idea what it's talking about there...

My Kind of Blog

You Are a Life Blogger!

Your blog is the story of your life - a living diary. If it happens, you blog it. And make it as entertaining as possible.

What Kind of Blogger Are You?

I'm pretty sure I already told you all that this was my kind of blog anyway... Yes. My purpose for writing a blog is to write down things that happen in my life, or things, ideas, people, etc. that I encounter in my life, a huge part of which is Little Chub (who, incidentally, just opened a diaper that I neglected to throw away and which is now stinking up the entire living room--NASTY!).

I have dreams of writing things that are so interesting that people who stumble upon it will actually stay for more than 5 seconds, but the reality of it is that only people who know me will actually find most of it interesting. Oh well. It's also nice to write down whatever I feel like sometimes. Blogging is a great opportunity to get on your soap box and have it not matter what you say.

Our Favorite Board Books

A friend/neighbor of ours has some board books by Sandra Boynton that are the most hilarious books! They are simultaneously interesting to Little Chub and entertaining for me. My personal favorite: Blue Hat, Green Hat. Little Chub's favorite: Fuzzy, Fuzzy, Fuzzy. We received a gift certificate to Amazon.com for Christmas from a relative, so we used part of it to get Little Chub some Sandra Boynton books, which arrived today. We love them!

And speaking of favorite books, Little Chub got a book from her cousin for Christmas called I Love You Through and Through, and this is her absolute favorite book EVER. Some of her other favorites are Jamberry and First Words. For Little Chub, forget the really sweet ones like Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny--she's not quite old enough to appreciate those yet. Especially The Runaway Bunny! The second we open that one up, she picks it up and tosses it over her shoulder. (Not with attitude, more like with boredom.) But, if we choose books she likes, we can entertain her for quite a while. Sometimes she even grabs her books herself and sits on the floor flipping the pages and "reads" to herself in a really cute sing-songy voice that completely cutes me out!

Food, 1/29/07

Breakfast:
Bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats

Lunch:
Homemade macaroni and cheese
(This was really small egg noodles and a sauce with cheddar cheese, parmesan cheese, and a little alfredo sauce, with garlic powder, salt, and cayenne pepper. It was really good. The parmesan cheese really made it something yummy and unique.)

Dinner:
Spinach artichoke parmesan sauce/dip, some with Italian toast crackery things, and some with rice.

Snack:
Tortilla chips, a few tablespoons of cottage cheese

Water:
64 ounces!! YAY!!

An Inconvenient Truth

Stanford played this movie last night, and some friends invited us to go see it with them. We'd already seen it, but since we almost never do anything social, we decided to go. We really like hanging out with the people we know here, but since everyone has kids, and all of the kids are on different schedules, it gets kinda crazy. (For example, their little boy, who is a few months older than Little Chub, just went to bed, around 7pm, for the night. No crying or fussing or anything!) So, their son went to bed and Little Chub came with us to the movie. We were a little nervous about this, but, we don't have any easy picks for babysitters yet because the people we want to eventually babysit exchange with had their baby only a month ago. Definitely not time to toss Little Chub on them!!

Anyway, I think this movie, although a little dry, is a very important movie for everyone to see. I know there are still people out there who don't believe that global warming is even real, based on faulty criticism it received years ago. The sad (and yes, inconvenient) truth is that the reality of global warming is not in dispute right now. So, even though there is a lot I could say about that, I think Al Gore does a better job of it. I'm not a "global warmist" (nice word, huh?) anyway, I'm a linguist, which is what makes me feel like I can make up words like global warmist. *snort snort*

Anyway, see the movie. Even if you don't agree, or it doesn't interest you. Everybody, in this country especially, has a responsibility to try to DO something about this, and you can start by watching this movie, and paying attention the the suggestions they put in during the ending credits. I know there are tons of things I can change that could start to make tiny dents in our CO2 output. If everyone made these changes, think where we would be!

And, if you have some legitimate issues with the movie, post them on my comments. I'd really love to see if anyone who disagrees actually has a leg to stand on.

By the way, Little Chub did pretty well at the movie. We had to take her out a few times, and stand with her quite a bit, but only because she was making some noises that the average movie watcher probably gets annoyed at, and we didn't really feel like making any enemies...

Optimistic

As of right now, I feel pretty good. I'm trying to be optimistic, and maybe the emotional roller coaster I've been riding (one that goes below ground level but never rises up more than, say, 10 feet) is a good sign that the pregnancy is continuing on normally. For a large part of Saturday and Monday I was depressed and pretty much resigned to the fact that I was going to miscarry. Then, everytime I feel normal and there is no spotting, I feel like I've been unreasonable. I know that certain parts of my body already act pregnant. This was particularly obvious as we were walking on campus last night (quite quickly!). I kind of felt like I was waddling already, even though there is absolutely no lump to be seen! The pelvic bones that normally spread later (at least later in pregnancy #1), have already been hurting me all night long, and they were also bothering me a little while we were walking. It's weird to FEEL pregnant, and have it not have anything to do with a big belly! And since I still FEEL pregnant, I'm currently feeling optimistic, even though that weird pain still comes and goes. Some thoughts about that are/were: ectopic pregnancy (pretty sure not), blood clot (symptoms aren't right), corpus luteum cyst (I have no way of knowing myself), or something totally normal that I haven't experienced that is a little stronger than what other people normally feel but is not dangerous in anyway (this would be nice). Another cool thing is that last night, I'm pretty sure I could feel my uterus a little bit. It's so little compared to a very pregnant one, but it has to be bigger than normal, since I felt it. I can't normally feel it. So if I'm right and that was my pregnant uterus, that's another good reason to rule out an ectopic pregnancy.

And thanks Bonnie and Andrya! I love knowing I have support like you guys!

Still Worried...

Ever since the spotting Saturday morning I've had worse than expected lower abdominal pain (in the same place I felt labor pains). It is kind of off and on, but worst when I walk. At times it has been bad enough that I kind of walk funny.

Today, when I woke up, I had very very light brown mucus, which leaves me worried still/again.

The sad thing is, I don't even have a midwife yet, so I'm really not sure what to do. It seems pointless to make an appointment if I'm just going to miscarry, but smart to make one to find out what's really going on. Since I want my pre-natal care at the birth center in San Francisco, which is 35-40 minutes away, it makes things even more confusing because getting there can be a pain.

AHHH! I just don't know what to do. I also don't have health insurance yet.

good night, and good luck.

We watched this movie last night, and really enjoyed it. We particularly enjoy watching movies that portray events from history that we probably don't want repeated. This one deals with McCarthyism, and it really kind of makes you sick, how such a thing could have even happened. The thing that I think is cool about this movie is that anywhere that Senator McCarthy shows up is real video of the things he said. If you haven't seen this movie, I highly recommend it.

Random fact: Senator Joseph McCarthy has the same birthday as me. Blech!!

Food, 1/28/07

Breakfast:
Bowl of Frosted Miniwheats

Lunch:
Chips w/ cheese, sour cream, Louisiana Hot Sauce
2/3 piece of chocolate cake w/ chocolate frosting

Snack:
A couple of chips

Dinner:
2 fried egg sandwiches with cheese, cream cheese, Louisiana Hot Sauce
~15 grapes

Water:
47 oz