DragonBlog

Back from the Abyss...

I've been meaning to blog for a couple of days now, but between it being the weekend and my being sick it just never really happened.

I'm feeling much better now. There's still a slight feeling of "under the weather" on an overall scale, but that's mostly due to the large-scale snot excavation that is now going on in my sinuses and lungs. Fortunately it doesn't look like there was as much drainage into my lungs as I feared, so there isn't as much to cough up. This is a good thing. I really, really, really hate coughing up big honking gobs of snot. Yep. Not on my "favorites" list whatsoever.

Today was spent catching up on a couple of things and getting some crap out of my e-mail inbox. Every time I get down to five or six e-mails in there, I turn around for five minutes and come back to find twenty more have arrived. Even after dealing with a bunch today there's still 13 glaring at me in there. Fortunately two of them are relating to the tomato plants I'm going to pick up at someone's house tomorrow. Brian has mentioned wanting us to grow some stuff in a garden in the back, and a lady on freecycle is thinning out her garden and offering up tomato plants. So part of tomorrow will be spent getting them and another part will probably be spent putting them into the yard in back. It will probably also involve a stop at the hardware store's garden shop for a couple of items, but the ends will justify the means when we eventually have some tomatos growing happily in the back. Yum.

The other new craze around here is making hemp jewelry. I've decided to get back into the jewelry-making art form, and until I can take a jewelry class to brush up on my silvercraft skills and have access to a kiln and other necessary stuff again, I'm throwing myself into beadwork and knotting. I've ordered a couple of books to give me some new knotting ideas so that I'll have some variety to work with. There's method behind this madness, really. I could do this - it's addictive!

I've been making a couple items per day at least - even while sick - and have found that there's something about the hemp itself that I find soothing. For one thing, I can smell it! Well, I smell something anyway - somewhat floral in nature - and it also has been leaving some oiliness on my hands that is making them soft in the process.

To be honest, it's nice to do something that doesn't involve the computer too. I need to remind myself to step away from my keyboard now and again and see the things around me. And Jareth loves the beads. He knows the words 'beads' and 'string' now and is quick to come watch while I select the beads I'm using for a particular piece. I made a bracelet and anklet child-sized for him, although he'll only wear them for a little while before he wants them off again. He's not used to having things hanging on his wrist or ankle like that...

I'll have to learn how to make beads too - my mom was doing some of that. Then I can really make stuff that's personalized. Anyway, once I've got enough made to have an inventory maybe I'll start getting a table/booth at some of the local craft shows and see where it goes. I think it will be a fun change for me. I thrive on the artsy/creative stuff. Brian is being very supportive about the whole thing, but then there's some changes floating around in the possible future for him as well. But I'll let him be the one to mention those when he's ready to. In the meantime, I'm still going to do the web design work that comes along, but eventually I'll phase it out if the jewelry thing looks like it's going to go well. We'll just have to see how it all goes.

Yeah, I know. It'd be nice to see me pick one thing and stick to it eh? Why don't we just say "creativity" and I'll stick to that. In the end, that's what I need. To be able to have an outlet of creativity. So, in the meantime, this is the scene hanging next to my computer screen:

G'night!

More Booger Blogging...

So, I'm not going to the Pow-Wow after all. In fact Brian and Jareth just headed out there without me, since I wanted to go so badly that I couldn't bear to keep them from getting to go because of me. It sounded like a really cool thing. Oh well. I'll just have to hear about it through them instead.

At least when Brian picked up my prescriptions he also got me ice cream. That's some small consolation.

Yes, that's right, prescriptions. It got so bad last night that I decided I had to break down and go see a doctor today. Now, after nearly $200 worth of medicine (not counting the $15 of herbal stuff that was recommended I take too) and a "we'll bill you" for the doctor visit, I still don't feel anything more than poorer. I so love not having insurance... *lets the sarcasm drip along with her snot*

So, the little snot babies and their snotty parents invited all their booger friends to come and party in my head. I had it confirmed that I've got a sinus infection which is having a field day while my allergies are in full bloom. Mmmmm. I got prescribed some stuff to hose the snot demons down with once a day, and a nice big pill of antibiotics to flush the infection out after them. I also had some herbal thing recommended to keep my intestines in line so that they don't start giving me hell in the poopy scenario while I'm on the antibiotic. Yay me. More pills.

I just got finished taking all the happy pills and now I'm going to zone out and play computer games and/or nap for pretty much the rest of the day. Of course Brian is now gone until who-knows-when tonight, so I don't know what I'm going to eat for dinner all by my lonesome here. I think I might still have some big cans of soup though. And there's always that ice cream.

*sigh*

I think I'd better stop blogging for today. It all goes downhill from here until the medicines start doing their job.

G'night!

Another post about my snot... (eeewww)

With the exception of that long weekend in Florida, it feels like May is "Amy Be Sick" month. As if it wasn't bad enough that I was recovering from the nastiness that Brian chose to share with me, now I've obviously inhaled the largest dose of allergens I've ever encountered.

I swear it was a specific moment yesterday, not long after I posted to this blog, where I looked at the open window beside me and inhaled. And then, without warning, my sinuses were in a steely grip of death. They have been attempting to wriggle free ever since. Now my sore throat has gotten worse because I have big gobs of snot dripping down the back of it, settling into my lungs which every now and again burst forth with a thunderous barrage of coughing as they insist that they don't want my snot any more than I do!

I believe the snot itself is on strike. What isn't running down to piss of my lungs is staging a sit-in in my nose - just out of reach of any attempt to jam tissues up there and dislodge it. Now and again the snot toys with me - moving over to just one side and allowing me to breathe clearly through the other. I, of course, get all excited - thinking I can evict them entirely if I just blow hard enough. That's when my ears start protesting and the snot just sits there laughing in all it's evil boogerness.

*sigh*

I've doubled the usual allergy meds, which seems to have cleared up some of the sit-in problem, however there is still that nasty density problem in the forehead just over the nose. That's where the snot is making little snot babies, who grow very quickly and re-enact the sit-ins of their forefathers once they are old enough to ooze into position. Little snot babies are up there whining and screaming and kicking their little snot feet IN MY HEAD!

*whimpers*

I'm trying to find the balance here. I either need more napping or more medication, because I really want to feel good enough to go to this Pow-Wow thing in Aurora tomorrow. We're supposed to go with some friends, but if I feel tomorrow like I feel right about now - there's no chance I'm going anywhere. I may have to send Brian and Jareth off without me. Which would suck. Because I really want to go.

*Runs off to check the yellow pages for a snot excorcist*

Playing Catch-up...

I'm still playing some measure of catch-up from before we went on vacation, only just now finishing up thank-you letters from Jareth's birthday and sending them off in the mail. At least I'm getting them off in the same month as the Birthday, which is more than I can say for last year. I was so overwhelmed with other stuff last year, I handed the task off to Brian, who was equally busy at the time and never got a chance to get to them. So this year I told myself I'd take care of it right after we got back from vacation...

Yeah, so? You can just hush up about my definition of "right after" now. Thanks. At least this year they got done. I've got an idea about how to make it easier the next time too. Progress. I like it!

I also found out (when hoping to print out cute little pictures to include with the thank-you notes - so much for that idea) that I'm all out of color in in my printer. Poop. So I did a round of online ordering after the usual rigorous search to try and get the best prices. I got some other little tasks out of the way too. Tidy-tidy-tidy-tidying up. Yup.

I just wish my damned throat would stop hurting now please. Ow.

Today was also the last class for this session of Jareth's gymnastics class. Next session he's doing it on Saturday mornings (since the weekday one started even earlier next session there was no way in hell I was going to try for that one!) and Brian gets to take him. Brian is all excited. So am I - this means I can get up at a leisurely pace on Saturdays over the summer. Wow. Maybe I'll get in the habit of having a Saturday morning bubble bath... Nah. They won't be gone long enough for that. I guess I'll probably just take the opportunity to sleep in.

Since we've been back, we've been extra busy. Seems we done went an' got ourselves some of dat dere social life stuff! Brian already posted about how we've now got a roleplaying group started up. We also hosted his drum circle at our house last Friday too. Wow.

I have to say I didn't expect it to be quite like that. I'm kind of the type who likes certain types of things to be spontaneous in order to really mean something. I figured that the drum circle would be too planned to really draw me in, but I was wrong. It's as if the drums came and brought the people along with them. The drums, themselves, wanted to be played damnit! And people's hands couldn't seem to keep away from obliging them. I, too, was drawn to want an instrument in my hands, despite the fact that I was trying to be in charge of Jareth and keep him out of trouble. We wanted Jareth to have a chance to be a part of that experience, but not risk damaging someone else's experience in the process. Since I'm not technically a member of the drum circle, that was my responsibility. But Brian and I traded off now and again and I let myself be drawn into the circle and take up a drum from time to time. Otherwise I was at the outskirts using one of the many small instruments that were being handed around the room (mostly by Jareth who liked "trading" or "sharing" with everyone, whether they wanted to or not!) like clackers and shakers and other such noisemakers.

The session was held in our living room, and the whole room just filled up with sound. We have a high, angled ceiling and it was interesting to see how it sounded in there. Someone suggested we hear it from outside too, although I never did quite make it out front to do that. I think I didn't want to leave the energy that built in that room. I don't think I've specifically grinned like that in quite a while. It was a very positive aura that filled the space and it lingered for a while even after people had left. When I went to sleep that night, I still had the pulsing sound of the drums echoing in my mind.

Needless to say, I've said they can have it here again. If all I have to do is cook up something to help feed them - that's a fair price to fill the house with that kind of energy. Hell yeah!

Anyway, that's all for now. Back to playing catch-up again. (Think I will ever actually get caught up...nah, me either.)

G'night!

Anniversary Vacation 2005 -
Wrapping up and Coming Home...

Now that most of my sickness has abated to nothing more than a medicated fuzziness in my head, drippy sinuses, a raspy cough, and a sore throat I'll wrap up the posts on our recent vacation.

*pauses to blow nose*

Yeah. So...

I miss the ocean, now it's nothing more than a wistful memory, a handful of pictures (once I order some copies anyway), and a couple of 30-second videos of the waves moving in and out. There's just something about those waves. Once again, I slept wonderfully while I was there. That's part of what we paid the extra for the "ocean view" hotel room for - because when I can hear those Atlantic waves rushing onto the sandy beach, I sleep better than I sleep anywhere else. This, coming from a person who normally can't sleep in hotel rooms, means something.

*holds out hands to either side*

Desert? or Ocean? Damnit... where do I want to live?

I guess I'd take either. If I go with ocean, my sinuses seem to handle the Atlantic Ocean without trying to fill my lungs up at least. I can't say that for Seattle - a city I had to flee in search of the driest spot I could think of where we'd be able to find temporary jobs. I thought I was going to cough up a lung in Seattle, but so far I've never had that kind of problem when I've been on the east coast. The section of Pacific coastline we checked out seemed gray and dreary too, but maybe that was just the time of year. I'd want to check ahead though, and make sure I didn't move to some humid section of the country on accident if I ever get to move out of Illinois at all.

*sigh*

We left the hotel (and the recharger for my digital camera batteries apparently too) behind us after a final relaxing day and night on the beach. Sunday was spent sunning, napping, eating, and otherwise enjoying the kind of company two adults with a hotel room to themselves and no two-year-old little boy to look after can have. Yep, that's right. We was doin' it. We probably did *it* more times in that weekend that we have over the course of the last month. Such it is now that our little guy has invaded our lives. Priorities change. They aren't forgotten. They just change. But, send us away for a few days and let the partying begin! Woohoo!

We turned in our rental car and embarked upon our two-flight journey home, watching the ocean dwindle away behind us from 30,000 or so feet.

Bye-bye ocean...

How I will miss thee.

However, I've come home to my little guy again. And all his hugs and sloppy kisses. I did miss him bunches - I kept wanting to show him all the cool ocean and sky! Someday I will...

But for now, I'm home again.

And all that that implies.

Returning from Illness and And now,

Sunday, over the course of five or six hours, I went from "ugh, my stomach feels off and I'm really tired - must be something I ate combined with the heat in the car..." to "Oh man do I feel like crap!!!" I guess whatever had been plaguing Brian earlier in the week that he stayed home one day for had decided to pay me a visit as well. As a result, I spent all of yesterday in bed taking my temperature and drinking hefty quantities of Nyquil. I took enough time to safeguard the family room and plunked Jareth in it after breakfast, visiting him only often enough to drop him some lunch and take care of the obligatory diaper changes. As it was, he sat in one diaper a bit longer than he should of, and I found myself groggily apologizing to him as I changed him before his nap. It was the closest I could arrange to getting a "sick day" though, as I couldn't really ask Brian to be staying home for me so soon after our vacation and him having had a sick day of his own.

I feel a bit better today, having dealt with the fever end of things yesterday. I'm still feeling run down and the sore throat I got is now giving way to the "phlem stage" of things. Yay. I just snotted up something that looked like it ought to be part of my brain. I hope not. I doubt I can afford to lose any brain cells.

So, I will wrap up the vacation stuff and handle the backlog of posts I have to put up here another night, and give in to the inevitable Tuesday meme...

Would you rather:
1. spend 76 hours at a rave OR at a work/education conference?
Rave. That sounds far more interesting from a "people-watching" perspective than some dull conference. *grin*
2. star in your own sitcom that only lasts one season OR star in one hit movie?
One hit movie. Then it wouldn't cost so much to make all my friends buy the dvd.
3. drive a winnebago everywhere for a month OR drive a scooter?
Give me the WINNY!!! Woohoo! Been there. Done that. 37 feet of traveling bliss. Ours wasn't a winnebago though, it was a Fleetwood Limited (basically a limited edition of the Pace Arrow).
4. drink a shot of laundry detergent OR a glass full of white vinegar?
White vinegar. But only on the basis that it would be less toxic on a chemical level. Eeech!

That's all for now.

G'night!

Not-a-blog

It's a busy, busy weekend and I'm not feeling like blogging tonight. So I thought I'd just drop in a quick note to say so.

That's all.

G'night!

Anniversary Vacation 2005 -
"But I thought you said you'd NEVER do THAT!?!

So, while we were driving around the greater Fort Lauderdale area, in search of locally crafted objects and food better than the sludge at our hotel, we saw a few of a specific shop around. Here and there, somehow showing up on my radar of notice as we passed them. So much so that I inadvertantly was using one of these shops as a landmark to let me know I was coming up on one of my turns to get back to the hotel.

I mentioned my sudden and strange inspiration to Brian, who seemed oddly unaffected that I was suggesting I might want to do something that I had spent many, many years telling people I would never do. In his usual, nonchalant manner, he shrugged and said:

"If you think it's something you really want to do, then go for it."

Yep. That's my husband in a nutshell right there. Unphased by nearly anything I can come up with at this point. He's survived my drastic haircuts (I have a nasty tendency to grow it super long, only to then go have it chopped off super short) and the occasional hair dye "incident". This one, however, was going to have a more permanent effect...

So, after a dinner of peel-and-eat shrimp, grilled Mahi Mahi, and a slightly stiff drink on Saturday night, I decided it was time. I'd beaten myself up pretty thoroughly for the earlier morning's snorkeling being less than I'd expected of myself. I needed to do something daring and purposeful. I needed to do something empowering. And for some, what I was about to do is considered a rite of passage ritual. A symbolic stepping over a threshold into another phase of my life.

Please note that I only had the ONE drink. I was not, in the least bit drunk by the time we reached the shop. I also spent over an hour browsing, looking, choosing, indicating, waiting and eventually signing the paperwork before we actually began. So I was quite sober. I just wanted that on the record. I wouldn't have minded having a few shots of something serious right beforehand, but it was technically important for me to do this while sober. I did not want it to be something I regretted later. And I don't. In fact I am very pleased with both the experience and the outcome.

Because, on my back, on my right shoulder, now lives a dragon in tattoo form. She's probably only about four inches tall (I haven't specifically measured her). She's there to help guide me, watching my back when others try to push me down. She's meant to help empower me. The dragon side of me - the stronger side of me:

The picture was taken that night, when we got back to the hotel and enough time had passed that we could take the bandage off of it again. I'm still healing now and I have this lotion stuff I need to put on it several times a day for a total of two weeks.

The guy who did it, Leif, called it the Lil' Dragon on the sheet I had to sign. He did a wonderful job, trying to give me a balance between the kind of detail I wanted and the small size I was looking for overall. He first drew a rough sketch, based on what I was looking for, and then drew the outline of the final tattoo. I was actually amazed that it didn't hurt nearly as much as I thought it was going to. I've spent years and years swearing that I'd never do such a thing as I always figured my pain tolerance was low and that I'd be a total wuss. I think childbirth is part of what changed that thought - I went for quite a while having back labor before I bailed out and took the heavy-duty stuff when I had Jareth. Handling an hour of getting a tattoo was no trouble at all. It's hurt some since, but no more than having a sunburn (which I managed to avoid, by the way) would really.

I wanted to link the shop, but they don't seem to have a web site that I can find! Bugger that, I'll just list their info here for anyone looking for a decent tattoo shop in the Ft. Lauderdale area:

Mine was done by Leif. I think he did a great job. There was also a guy there who had horns. Okay, they looked more like spikes coming out of his head, but you get the idea. They are in his skull. Interesting. But don't expect that to be next on my list of wild and daring things I do. I need horns like I need another... errr... two? holes in my head. Yeaaaaaah. Ow. *shudders* I think I can safely say I won't be doing that. Yup. Pretty sure.

My sister is going to flip when she finds out about this. I gave her some grief about wanting a tattoo (although she did get one anyway) a while back.

It's strange though. I wonder if people around me would change their perception if they knew I had a tattoo. Most of the time it is likely to be hidden under my shirts (although a part of me is scoping out shirts that would show it off for when I've lost a little more weight) and no one will even know it's there unless I mention it. I know that some people I know will likely just say "oh, that's cool" and not even be phased by it. Others, however, would have a slightly altered perception of me now. I, at least, have always had a different perception about people who have tattoos - that usually they either did something really stupid after having more alcohol than they could really handle, or that they have a rougher-edged side of them that is able to handle some pain. Then again, that pereption was my pre-tattooed perception, which thought that it would actually hurt a whole lot more than it did to get one...

Nonetheless, I have permanently placed a reminder, hovering mid-flight on one shoulder and looking fierce to help ward off those that might wish to do me harm in one form or another. A reminder that I can be a strong individual. Not just in the matter of dealing with a little pain. In life overall. It is an affirmation towards empowerment and assertiveness for me. I have allowed my inner dragon to peek out and show itself in the form of a tattoo, to help me better embrace her.

If I ever get another one, it will be my inner child (a small, pixie-like fairy) who will have to go somewhere on the left side of my body in order to maintain balance. But, for now, I need to embrace my dragon-self. To fill with fire and power and fly.

More tomorrow. Brian's drum circle was here tonight (which I'll have to blog about once I finish the vacation set) and I'm pooped!

G'night!

Anniversary Vacation 2005 -
The Snorkeling Adventure
(a.k.a. - how I jumped off a perfectly good boat)

The pictures from the snorkeling bit are coming back tomorrow hopefully, so I'll put up some when I get them, assuming anything actually turned out. In the meantime, I'll give you the story...

So, while booking the trip in the first place, there was a spot near the end where the web site offered up some "other" activities we could include for our recreational entertainment while on vacation. I was hoping for hot-air ballooning or maybe horseback riding - both things I've never tried but would like to. Instead, however, there was snorkeling.

Pro Dive (who really needs the linkage folks - I only found their web address by searching for their snail mail address on google and finding a PDF file that listed them amongst a bunch of other organizations. Their listing happened to include their web address. Talk about a round-a-bout way of finding someone's site. Eep!) had an easy checkbox to sign up for a snorkeling outing, so I decided to be daring and give it a try. Brian was game, and I've taken swimming classes before to help me overcome my fear of water, so I figured this would be a daring moment of self-affirmation as I conquered my fears and jumped on in.

After all... I'd have a snorkel for goodness sake! That means I could breathe underwater right? How much cooler could it get?!

So I pointed. I clicked. I included it in the package when I gave up my credit card number and set our vacation in motion.

We had vouchers that we printed out and could turn in any day that we wanted to choose for our snorkel trip. We picked Saturday, figuring we'd be pretty tired Friday morning after flying in late the night before, and not wanting to wait until the last minute and risk not being able to do it if we waited for Sunday. So Saturday morning we grabbed a quick and light breakfast (also known as "the McDonald's fiasco") and made our way to the Pro Dive place with plenty of time to hand in our vouchers and sit on the dock in nervous anticipation before getting on the boat. If you go to the web site, the boat in the picture at the top looks very much like the boat we went on. In fact it might even be the same boat. I'm not sure. I forgot to get a picture of the boat, but we'll get to that later...

We first got a quick lecture about how the boat is in water and therefore can get slippery so that the clueless amongst us wouldn't just go bounding down the slightly bouncing plastic planks to get to the boat and slip directly into the water instead. Then we got to board. Brian and I grabbed seats up front just outside the top front window, where we could see everything and yet not get totally nailed by seaspray every time the boat made a downward motion once we got out onto the rockier stuff. There was a small group of women who grabbed that spot - a little lower than we were sitting and further to the front - and they seemed to enjoy being up there. We shared the cushy bench with another couple and I also moved to a slightly forward bench for some of it to enjoy some of the spray on my legs and feet.

I thoroughly enjoyed the ride out there. The wind in my hair, the sun on my face, and the salt on my lips was wonderful! Brian was obviously enjoying it too, and we toyed with conversations about one day living on a boat for part of our retirement instead of just back into a motorhome. At the time, it all sounded fabulous to me. The open air, the sea spraying playfully across my feet, the complexity of the water - seemingly pure and gentle yet powerful and dangerous all at once. It was one of those crystal clear feeling moments of purity in life and I loved it.

We moved out of the bay and out into the ocean, but still within sight of the shoreline, where we dropped anchor and got a quick lesson on how to snorkel.

Inflatable thing. check.
(Blow a little air in there - don't fill it though! - if you get a bit tired and it will help you float easier. That sounds handy. But I don't need to put air in it yet, since I'm not at all tired...)
Mask. check.
(Spray stuff in there, rub it around, dip into the water bucket. Got it.)
Snorkel. check.
(Attached to the mask. stick the one end in the mouth and breathe through it. Breathe out really hard if you get water in it. Sounds easy enough.)
Flippers. check.
(Stupid floppy flipper feet things to help propel you in the water. Take them off before you try to get on the boat or you will hurt yourself in the effort. Got it.)
Walk or jump off the boat when it's time. check.
(I can do this. I'm going to do this. After all I'M the one who picked this activity out for us to try...)

So I put the inflatable thingy over my head, spray the stuff on the mask, rub and dip, put the mask on and check the snorkel out. I put the rubber flippy things on my feet and make sure I have my waterproof camera safely strapped to my arm so I can take pictures while I'm snorkeling. After all - that's what I bought the cameras for. Then I make my way over to the back edge of the boat, take a nice deep breath...

and then I jumped off of the PERFECTLY GOOD BOAT !!!

Let me just say this again. I jumped off the perfectly good, floating ON the water, NOT sinking or getting washed over with waves, BOAT. Nice and dry, floaty boat. And I. jumped. off.

What the HELL was I THINKING!?!

So, the very first thing that happens when I jump of the perfectly good boat was that I got water in my snorkel. All thoughts of "blow really hard to get the water out" immediately flee the vicinity of my consciousness as I frantically yank the snorkel piece out of my mouth so I can breathe real, honest-to-goodness AIR.

Calm down, Amy. You have to calm down and breathe. He said if you breathe quickly in the snorkel you're just breathing in the air you breathed out. You need to calm down and focus and you can do this. It's just a BIG FUCKING OCEAN you're bobbing around in. Those are just WAVES going over your head, and OHFUCK, OHFUCK, I CAN'T DO THIS!! OHFUCK, OHFUCK!!!

That was about the point I started paddling my ass back towards the boat, spitting and gulping the saltwater that kept getting in my mouth either through the top of the snorkel or while I had it out of my mouth so I could breathe.

Someone on the boat noticed my look of peril (hard to miss with me flailing my arms and yelling "Help!" I suppose) and first suggested I calm down and slow my breathing. By that point, however, total and utter panic had set into my body with an icy grip. It didn't take more than a moment before they realized and tossed me a nice orange floaty thing to grab onto to help me stay above the water. Which was a good thing too, as it helped stem just enough of the panic to keep me from going under entirely. My wits had pretty well left me stranded.

One of the guys was in the water already, and he helped get the flippers off my feet so I could make it back onto the boat, which was a feat in and of itself. The back end of the boat goes up and down with the waves, smacking back down into them after the rise. Getting onto it is tricky if you aren't used to it, and even worse if you are only barely this side of sheer mindless panic. I clung onto that boat for dear life, halfway up the ladder at one point, just trying not to let go of the perfectly good, solid, FLOATING boat again. After a minute or so I was back on board.

For a while all I could do was just sit there trying not to just shake. My fear of water in swimming pools wasn't that bad anymore. Big wavy oceans was a whole different matter entirely. Someone handed me a cup of water to help me offset the saltwater I had swallowed. I drank it and asked for another. I didn't feel it right away, but then it started. The nausea from having swallowed the saltwater. The water only helped so much. The real problem was now the boat. The perfectly good boat. Still out in the evil, rocking, wet, salty ocean - bouncing up and down and up and down and up and down. A fact that does not mesh well with a person feeling a sudden wave of nausea.

There was also the growing issue of my colon. You see, I have this irritable bowel thing which leaves me suddenly saying "uh-oh" and rushing for the nearest bathroom from time to time if my body and I have a disagreement on what I've been eating or how much stress I've been under. And being in that water was very stressful for me. And my colon noticed that fact. It hadn't been too hard on me about the light stress of going on an airplane for the first time. It made up for it with the jumping off the perfectly good boat thing instead.

I did manage to not actually throw up while I was on that boat. However, I handed my waterproof camera to Brian once he was back on the boat and suggested that he do the picture-taking for a while on our way back. I then locked myself into the little women's room they had on the boat. Twice.

Two things about going potty on a boat. One - If you're wearing a full swimsuit instead of separate top and bottom pieces - it tends to roll down and be a bitch to get back up again when wet. And it's even harder when you need one hand to hold onto the boat as it bounce up and down. Two - Some things just don't flush well without using the water sprayer on the sink too. And when you're nauseaus to begin with, you don't want to take the time staying in the small, enclosed area to begin with (especially one where you are supposed to put the toilet paper in the trash bin instead of the toilet... eww... I'm very glad I can't smell things much!). They warned us about puking in the bathroom as it would only make us feel worse. Fortunately, I can't smell very well, which is probably why I kept my McBreakfast down instead of hurling its regurgitated remains out one of the boat's windows. But I didn't want to stay in that bathroom any longer than I had to, so I know it didn't flush well. It flushed some, but not well.

Sorry about that guys. I didn't plan on leaving ickiness in the potty. Honest. I held that flush button down for a while before I gave up on it. But I was more concerned about getting my suit back up and finding a window where I could be prepped in case I did throw up.

Basically, once aboard the boat again, I spent every moment - that wasn't dealing with my swimsuit, the bathroom, or a feeling of nausea anyway - beating myself up emotionally for not staying in the water longer. I felt like I totally wussed out. But once the panic set in out there, I couldn't stay. I just couldn't. Argh.

But I will give myself credit for two things - I did jump off the perfectly good boat into the terrifyingly big and wavy ocean. On my own, without anyone pushing me. Also, I didn't throw up. Brian informed me there were something like four of the passengers that did throw up. I guess one of the guys was going around with a bucket to rinse down the side of the boat after each instance of vomit smacked against it. Ewwww. But I did not throw up. We changed our plans slightly and went back to the hotel for a while to rest afterwards, but I never threw up. Yay me.

Brian stayed in snorkeling for much, much, much longer than I did, although he did come in well before they called the people back to the boat. Mostly, though, he was having trouble with the mask - it wouldn't seal properly against his beard and he kept getting water inside it. But, if we have any pictures on the cameras of anything underwater from that - He took them. I think I tried to snap one picture while in the water, but I'm not positive and I wasn't looking through the viewfinder at the time anyway so I wouldn't have a clue what it got anyway. We did finish off the rolls of film in there with pictures of other stuff instead, and played with them in the shallows of the beach some too. And I was clever enough to ask about them after seeing a sign mentioning cameras at the airport, so they didn't go through the machine and get all ruined during the security check on our way back. So I should have some pictures to pick up tomorrow. I just don't really know what they will be of.

As for snorkeling - I'm not ruling it out entirely. I think that if I ever want to do it again though, I should learn how in a nice calm swimming pool first. Then I should build up slowly to doing the whole waves thing. It all looks very fun from a distance, but my fear of water is still just too great to be jumping right in like that. Back to baby steps on that one. I know where the fear stems from, but I'll leave that for another post at another time. This post has gone on long enough.

Next post... the other daring thing I tried that day - and how it was much more successful than the snorkeling...

Anniversary Vacation 2005 -
The Mystically Unattainable Local Crafts

Our first full day in Pompano Beach started out early (for me anyway) with some pictures of the beach from our balcony followed by the crappy breakfast at the hotel restaurant. After that, we basked on the beach for a bit before doing some of the planned shopping to get it out of the way early on.

One of the places we ended up was the mall.

Yes. I know. I flew how many miles to end up at the mall? I hate malls!

*sigh*

But the mall had the (supposedly) primo beachwear & surf shop and I wanted a hat. Not just any hat, but a replacement for a hat I bought long, long ago on our travels when we took our official "honeymoon" while traveling in our motorhome and stopped for two weeks in St. Augustine, Florida. It had been a lovely straw hat that actually looked good on me (a highly rare thing for hats) and I loved it. Then it got sat upon and died a horrible, squished death.

We found some shoes instead. I got some new sandals at the mall, and Brian found some at this large "swap shop" thing we ended up at on day two, after our lack of success at the mall on day one.

When it came to buying the hat though, the problem wasn't the amount of hats available. There were lots of hats, but none were the right hat. I did eventually buy two very inexpensive hats at one of the vendors at the "swap shop" place. They weren't the right hat, but they were very, very inexpensive and Brian assured me that they looked good. And no, he's not the type of guy to just say that because they were very, very inexpensive. At least he'd better not be, because if he is and I find out - he's gonna be in a wee bit of hot water if you know what I mean...

But what I was really having a hard time finding at the stores, were gifts to bring home.

You know - people who go on vacation usually bring little trinkets home for their friends and loved ones, yes? Yes. They do.

But we didn't. Not this time.

Why? yes... you might ask that. *sigh*

Because in the areas of Pompano Beach, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, and Fort Lauderdale - in all the sections that we thought ought to have those nice little shops that sell cute little items made of local shells and sand and palm tree wood or whatever - there was not a SINGLE GODDAMNED THING that didn't say "made in China", "made in Taiwan", or "made in the Phillipines" on it that wasn't stupid, overpriced, or altogether revolting!!!

And believe me, it sure as heck felt like we tried. I even went so far as to ask one of the people in one of the little oceanside gift shops filled with shot glasses saying Pompano Beach (made in China), shell necklaces, t-shirts and other assorted frequently seen trinkets - if there wasn't someplace that I could find some unique, locally crafted items instead.

All I got was a blank stare for a bit, followed by a "no."

And I did NOT want to just pick some stupid thing that I could have gone 100 miles up the coastline and gotten with some other town's name stamped onto it instead. I am NOT in the market for cheaply made CRAP as gifts for the people I care about.

So, if any of those friends and loved ones read this and wanted a gift - the best I have to offer you is one of the shells I picked up on the beach the last night before we had to leave. I filled a big ziploc freezer bag up with shells and a smaller bag of sand from the beach, so that I can make a jar up to remind me of the ocean until I can see it again.

My father-in-law doesn't have to ask though. For him I've got a rock. Don't ask why - it's a long story. Hopefully I'll one day just be able to link you to a web site so you can learn about that story yourself. But, I specifically found a rock for him. I just need to pluck it out of my bag and remember to give it to him on Sunday.

The other thing we found is that they really, really, really want to make it inconvenient for you to not just spend your money at the bars. We were there on a budget, so we decided not to really do the tiki bar thing, but pick up liquor and stock the mini-fridge instead. The local liquor stores, on the other hand, seem to stock mostly liquor for parties and wine tastings. We wanted fun, fruity stuff in little, easy-to-consume-before-vacation-ends bottles. They had wines, beers, and large bottles of stuff with liquor in them. In the end, we bought some of the larger stuff and had to pour leftovers out before we left. (we figured it was okay to leave cans of Pepsi for housekeeping, but probably not Pina Coladas) But it was still way less costly than it would have been to buy drinks at the bars. I swear that the whole area there is out to getcha when it comes to soaking you for your tourist money! Ouch, ouch, ouch! Some of that left a bad taste in my mouth.

The "swap shop" thing was basically what I'm used to seeing flea markets being, although there seemed to be a whole lot of vendors who had the same big bins of closeout or wholesale items (usually also made in China or some other poor cheap labor country). Although we found a few good deals there, we didn't buy much as we didn't want to try and pack it for the trip home. There was a farmer's market with it and some other stuff. I had been told by a local gal that we would find some local vendors there - I guess I should have been more specific and asked about local crafters at the time. It was a larger affair than my feet had the stamina for, and we wanted to get back on the beach, so we didn't see all of it. Maybe I missed the one local crafter by leaving before checking it all out. Maybe not. I may never know. But we'd spent quite a chunk of our first day running about town shopping, so we weren't going to spend most of our second day roaming aimlessly around the swap shop looking for him.

That second day also included our snorkel adventure... more on that in the next post I put up!

Also... for those who haven't heard yet... the mystery of the "thing I did even though I said I never, ever would" is soon to be unveiled! And yes, there will be a picture.

Anniversary Vacation 2005 -
The Hotel and Dining

The hotel, Ocean Point Resort, in Pompano Beach, had both good and bad points to it.

In the overall scheme of things, it was a decent price for the view and I liked the shape of the room. It was an odd sort of wedge-shaped room which lent a different feel to it than the usual box that so many hotels have. There was a small area with a microwave, sink and coffee maker by the door, a makeup mirror, a walk-in closet with an iron and ironing board, a bathroom with hairdryer, a king-sized bed, a bureau with a television and clock, a nightstand with the phone, a desk, a table, three chairs for them, and a comfier chair with an ottoman. It pretty much had all the basic requirements and had both a window facing westwards...

which I enjoyed trying long exposures with at night, and a balcony that faced northeast where we could see the ocean...

(Yep, there's Brian, checking out the ocean view). I thought they could have rearranged it better so that you could have seen the ocean while laying in the bed too, instead of sitting at the table inside, but if you layed down with your head at the foot of the bed you could see it that way too. When we were in the room, I had a tendency to lounge that way - sprawled out either backwards or sideways on the bed so I could see the ocean rolling in and out.

The main problem with the hotel was that it was a bit run-down. It's not that anything was specifically bad or scary (I've walked out of a hotel room in Springfield, Illinois once that had easily-found bugs, a busted chair, and exposed electrical wiring - that was scary!), it's just that it was obvious that they were working on both a budget and a lack of enthusiasm to really bring it back from its lackluster condition. The air conditioner in the wall, for example, was reasonably new, but the grate for it on the outside wall was old and rusting through. There were places of rust and occasional disrepair here and there. There was some concern about bugs - I was bitten a couple of times by something during the night - although the lack of screen on the patio door shouldn't have been a problem on the 9th floor as we were. I think a couple of errant flies and spiders just managed to make their way up and hadn't been shooed away.

The scary part was actually the elevator. There were two, and I found it highly ironic that it was the one that didn't wobble and creak as much that was shut down about midway through our stay. I wasn't too worried though - as I told all the other passengers who rode wide-eyed up and down it - I didn't fly all that way just to die on an elevator. Sheesh.

The other down to the hotel was the restaurant. Despite the fact that I overheard another customer telling our "waiter" (the guy told us that his wait staff hadn't shown up yet, making it sound like he was more of a manager) that it was the best (whatever she ate) that she'd ever had and to give her compliments to the "chef". Based on my own appraisal of the food, I think we were talking more along the lines of "fry cook" than "chef" per se. The Belgium waffle didn't taste right and had been made in a regular waffle iron instead. The eggs were overcooked, as was the steak. We tend to order two things and then split them all around when we do breakfast, so I got to try everything. Oh, and the "fresh" pot of coffee tasted far, far, FAR worse than the cup we'd gotten in the first place. I'm not sure how they managed to screw that up - it wasn't necessarily weak or overly strong or bitter - it just tasted wrong. Eech!

We never checked out the pool or the tiki bar, although Sunday afternoon it seemed like it was the loudest thing on our end of the beach! I couldn't tell if it was a bad band or a kareoke thing going on down there, but it was a long stretch of cover songs. I think the band changed at one point though as later the singing got better and the songs sounded less familiar at least. Dunno. *shrug*

For breakfast in Pompano Beach, I highly recommend The Upper Deck, at Sands Harbor Resort and Marina instead. Personally, I loved the vegetable frittata and we ordered that both times we went there for breakfast. We also tried their belgium waffle which was par for the course, and the french toast which wasn't anything out of the ordinary but also went very nicely with the frittata. Our server said she didn't take good pictures, but I'm putting her up here anyway...

She remembered us the second morning we went and was very nice.

We didn't get a chance to eat there for lunch or dinner, so I can't compare the rest of the food, but breakfast was wonderful.

As for the rest of the food...

Frank's Ristorante & Pizza (who didn't have a link on the Pompano Beach Chamber of Commerce page (in fact a lot of the restaurants don't), delivered to the hotel and was tasty enough but arrived a bit overcooked and yet not as hot as I would have liked for a restaraunt I could have easily ridden a bike to get to.

Fisherman's Wharf was okay. A bit pricey, but then so were a lot of places in Florida. The mahi mahi tasted good (although I have had better) and the peel-and-eat shrimp appetizer was fun. I will give them credit for not chintzing on the alcohol in my drink - it was a nicely potent little sucker, but not so much as to get me actually intoxicated. The waiter we had was nice enough although he seemed a bit distracted. I think it may have been nearing the end of his shift by the time we got there. The hostess was distracted. Some guy came in right behind us and handed her a bunch of flowers. At least she seemed to know him, instead of it being some sort of tourist stalker situation.

There was also another area that looked more like a tiki bar, as well as a gift shop and the pier itself off this restaraunt. The problem was - they charge just to go out on the pier! We walked down, hit the gift shop (the search for gifts is another story in and of itself - probably in the next post) and then went to go stand on the pier - only to find that they wanted more money out of us just to go out there! It was only something like a dollar for sightseers, but it was the principal of the matter that pissed me off after we had just paid them for dinner. We turned around and walked instead of going out there.

We also ate at Peter's Bakery & Deli in Ft. Lauderdale for lunch, and the sandwiches we had hit the spot nicely. They had what looked like a yummy selection of desserts and cookies in the front display cases too, but I was good and didn't try any. *pouts*

We did grab one breakfast at McDonald's one of the mornings. Yeah. Um. It was... well... McDonald's. Ewww. It's amazing I kept it down. We were in a hurry okay? *shudders*

There was another place (Tony's somthing-or-other?) that we had subs delivered from too. Those were yummy and big enough that they lasted for both lunch and dinner that day. We also hit the local supermarket, Publix, as well as some local... um... liquor shops... where we stocked up our mini fridge with soda pop and other things to drink to save us from spending money down at the bar.

Next post - shopping, and the search for the mystically unattainable "locally crafted" objects.

Anniversary Vacation 2005 -
Plane Go UP! Plane Go DOWN!
Plane Go UP! Plane Go DOWN!

As Brian managed to beat me to saying on his blog, we're back from our vacation to Florida. It was a trip of many "firsts" for me, which is always a good thing. I do love traveling, as I get daring and adventurous and try things I might not ordinarily do. I find myself really, honestly, experiencing life in a way that it can be hard to do on a day-to-day basis.

I blogged in my head every day while I was gone, but we pointedly did not bring the laptop and I'm far too aware that my fingers can never seem to jot down on paper all the things I'm thinking as I think them. And my shorthand is far, far, too rusty to allow me to try to use that to keep up, much less read what I wrote afterwards. So I will take it a bit at a time and let the story of our weekend roll out of me here instead, over the course of a few posts. Hopefully I'll remember to include all the good stuff...

First, was the "leaving" part of it all. This involved dropping Jareth and all his bags (he had more stuff packed than Brian and I did combined, and he was only about 45 minutes away from home!) at Brian's folks. It was a tough one for me, leaving my little guy for so long, but I did manage to do it without crying, although I had a hard time getting myself to go out the door and I will admit to some moistness welling up in the corners of my eyes.

After that I went home and had a quick lunch while making sure all the last minute stuff was taken care of. Brian came home from working a half-day and grabbed some quick lunch as well before RainMoon and her husband came with their van and drove us to the airport. They dropped us off at the "kiss and fly" section where they suggested that we tuck and roll as they drove by at about 20 mph while they tossed our luggage out the back... naw... they actually did stop though. RainMoon helped us get our bags out of the back and I gave her the keys to our house so she could watch over our pets while we were away. Quick hugs all around and we scooted away with our stuff to make room for the next person while they drove off into the mess of traffic around the airport.

Then there was a wonderful person right there already to check our luggage and give us our tickets, which was really cool as we didn't end up having to figure out much on what to do or where we needed to be. She directed us to the door we needed to go into and we headed on in. I went through security without setting off any bells or alarms ringing, so I don't have any lurid tales about some security person groping me up my bra or some other such nonesense. It was actually moving very quickly and much simpler than we expected it to be. In the end, we stopped for some food on the way to the gate as we had planned in a lot more extra time than we needed in case security would take a while. We split an appetizer and a drink (after all we weren't driving anywhere!) and then moseyed on over to wait with the others.

Next, there was the plane...

That is a picture of the actual first plane I've ever flown on - US Airways flight 719 from Chicago O'Hare to Charlotte. In the picture it had only just arrived (a bit late) and was still getting hooked up to the gate. After taking the picture I returned to where Brian was waiting with our carry-on bags and waited with him while the plane unloaded it's passengers and then got situated to take new ones on board. I listened to people around me whining and complaining to each other or the people at the other end of their cell phones about how the plane was late as if this was something uncommon. I don't remember what it was, but Brian then told me the percentage of flights that actually do leave on schedule (he's filled with all sorts of little facts like that!) and it wasn't very high. So I'm not sure exactly what they were all worked up about. I mean the plane did show up and all...

Flying is both everything and nothing like I expected. I specified "window seat" when I picked the flights, and had one for each of the four planes total that we were on between Thursday and Monday. I kinda wish some of them were better at washing the windows though - I couldn't be sure if it was always a dirty rag that had left the streaks or if some kid had been there before me, spittin' on the window! The view, however, was phenomenal. I was a picture fiend in the air, snapping pictures like mad with my digital camera. It took great shots during the day, but nighttime shots sucked. When the plane is going that fast, long exposure doesn't work and for some odd reason they didn't seem likely to want to stop so I could snap a few cool arial shots...

The plane going up for the first time was a bit unnerving, but I don't think I was too jittery. The other guy sitting near us seemed amused that it was my first flight and assured me he'd flown bunches and would warn me if anything seemed out of the ordinary. We were behind the right wing and could watch as the stuff on the wing altered for takeoff and landing. It was cool to see, and Brian had all sorts of little trivia tidbits to share that he happened to know about airplanes and flying.

It seemed like I felt every movement of the plane for that first flight, which bothered me a little. I also had to remind myself to continue to "believe" in the "magic of what made it stay in the air", also known as... um... physics, as Brian was so apt to remind me. He briefly majored in physics when he first started college, you see.

Going down was tougher. The part I generally don't like about roller coasters is that drop after the climb. The part where your stomach seems to drop out form underneath you while your body catches up just doesn't appeal to me. Some of the descent just before we hit the runway was reminiscent of that for me. There is also a period of descent before that where my ears were hurting like mad. The ear infection I had been getting over wasn't totally gone yet, and it was especially painful on the second flight that day.

However - getting into Charlotte there was a thunderstorm going on with heavy lightning. We made our way over to within a few feet of the gate only to be told that we couldn't connect with it yet. Although the plane itself it apparently nicely grounded, connecting to the gate becomes a problem if one of them should get struck by lightning, I guess. So, in order to keep from electrocuting the passengers, the pilot was told to stay back and wait. He later told us that it was a 10-minute delay each time lightning struck nearby before they would consider it safe to connect us up. We were already running late to begin with, but ended up waiting a good 30 - 40 minutes before there had been a full 10-minute interval of safety and we were given the green light.

After that, we checked the boards in the terminal to find that our connecting flight had been delayed as well. We made a mad dash, running down the corridors and people-walks, to get to the right terminal and gate for that flight. A quick run to the bathrooms and a snatch-and-pay for sandwiches at one of the vendors was all we really had time for before we were boarding.

Between the delay and the rushing, the second flight was already almost "old hat" to me, although I was still enamored with watching out the window between bites of my seriously overpriced sandwich. The sandwich was good but costly - though it seemed that a lot of stuff was overpriced in the airports. The second plane landed in Fort Lauderdale about two hours overdue, dropping us off at around 1:00 in the morning their time, where we managed to figure out where to go to find our bags and then find the bus we needed to get to the car rental area.

The car rental (through Alamo) went smoothly enough (reservations are nice things to make, yes?), although there was a little bit of a wait in line as there were only three people on staff that late at night... this is the point that I ought to mention that it was in the 40's (degrees farenheit) when we left the Chicago area, and it was in the 80's in both Charlotte and Ft. Lauderdale. I was in blue jeans and a thick, long-sleeved shirt because I had been cold when we left the house. We stood there in line, where I repeatedly chastized myself for not putting a t-shirt into my carry-on to change into when it got warmer. I wasn't about to worry about it then, as I was tired enough to just want to get to the darn hotel by that point. After we breezed through getting our papers to get the car, we had to find another guy to get us one, which took a little bit. We ended up with a Chevy Malibu. It was a good little car, in and of the fact that it got us where we were going and didn't cost us much in gas to do it. Other than that, I did not like some of the "features" on this car. I think it had one too many things it tried to do automatically for me, like the lights, which I did not want to use for fear I'd forget and leave the lights on when I got back home. It was a little frustrating, and it seemed like it took me forever to get the seat the way I wanted it to be comfortable driving the damned thing.

Mapquest is a wonderful thing, and I was a smart little cookie and had printed maps to certain points I knew we'd be going to while we were there. The map to the hotel from the airport got us there in short order - the toughest part was seeing the sign for the hotel itself. By the end of the trip we had landmarks we watched for, as the sign was a bit tucked back and almost hidden by some trees. I'll talk more about the hotel itself in the next post, but check-in went quick enough and it wasn't long before we were in the room and gazing out our balcony at the vast ocean and the beach that lay humbly before it as its waves rolled in and out.

Thus, we had arrived at our destination. Vacation had truely begun.

Leavin' on a Jet Plane...

I added a new category for this one. "Travels". Based on how my life has gone since we stopped living in a motorhome a while back, I didn't know when I'd do any traveling again. But now I'm off to vacation with my wonderful, handsome, dreamy husband. Aaahhhh.

And leaving my adorable, sweet, huggable little boy with my in-laws while where away. I will SO be pining for him. I just know it.

But tomorrow afternoon I'll be getting on a plane for the very first time in my life. So hopefully there won't be any strikes that prevent my plane from going on schedule, or hijackers that do something stupid mid-flight. Because if it's hijackers - they might well be in for a big surprise. I am SO not going to miss out on this vacation, damnit! *practices her evil eye look*

But it's nearly 11:00 pm the night before we leave and I haven't gotten much of anything packed as I was doing the laundry first so I'd have the clothes I want with me available. And I still need to pack most of Jareth's stuff for his weekend stay too. And Jareth has class in the morning, which doesn't leave a whole heck of a lot of time in between before I have to drop Jareth off and get back here so my friend RainMoon can take us to the airport.

*Takes a deep breath*

I can do this. The packing. The plane. The snorkeling while we're out there (did I mention I still have a slight fear of water, and yet I love the ocean?). The pining for my child. The whole thing.

It's just been a while. And there wasn't a child involved then.

But I'm going to enjoy this trip if it kills me.

So keep your fingers crossed that it doesn't, eh? Thanks.

This is me signing off until Monday night or sometime Tuesday, depending on how wiped I am when I get back.

Have a good weekend folks!

and, as always (or nearly always anyway)...

G'night!

Mother's Day

Mother's Day was a relaxing contrast to the rest of last week. It started with a slightly late awakening by my little boy and Brian coming in with breakfast in bed of freshly made french toast. Prior to that, there had been an adventure with finger paint while Brian helped a reluctant Jareth get his hands all messy to make me a "card". It's adorable. Jareth, on the other hand, loathed getting all that paint on his hands - not to mention his feet, as Brian had him do a footprint too!

After breakfast, we continued to hang out on the bed for a couple hours, just lounging and playing. Jareth has discovered the box of beaded necklaces from Brian's grandmother's stuff that I got not long ago when she passed on...

Later we moseyed on down to the living room where I sent Brian for batteries while I unpacked and assembled the various toys that Jareth had gotten the day before, and de-tagged the clothes so I could wash them. By the time we had batteries in everything he was coming up on nap time. He got to play for a bit before he just layed down while playing before we scooped him up for his nap.

I had wanted to do a picnic, but then ended up letting the day just slowly drift away until there wasn't actually enough time to go do it. In the end, we just kind of spent the day relaxing and playing with Jareth. It was a nice, needed rest after the recent commotion. It was also the lull before the storm when it came to prepping to go on vacation.

Birthday Party (and the reason I'm considering adding a photo album functionality to this site soon)...

Jareth's birthday party seems to have gone over reasonably well. After all my hectic cooking there was, indeed, enough food to feed everyone. And then some. The only troubles seemed to be in the timing for some things, as Jareth suddenly required a nap at the same point when I was hoping to bring out the cake and do presents. He was cranky and tuckered out so we put him down for an hour. During which, several people had to leave.

Once we did get to them, Jareth made out like a little 2-year-old bandit when it came to gifts. The "grown-up" drum we had ordered for him arrived that morning too, so we were able to at least give it to him on the day of his party. There was another delivery as well - Brian's cousin had sent a package for Jareth which turned out to be the radio flyer wagon we'd had on the wish list. Brian quickly assembled it and we began by using it to stack all the other presents on top of it:

Not long after that, I got one of my very favorite shots of the day - my guys! Jareth kept trying to go for trips exploring up and down our driveway which required one of us running after him as we were trying to keep him in the back yard with us. This time Brian had been the one to run and scoop our little escapee up and bring him back:

And then there was cake. Yummmm! Since just under half the people had left by then, I cut it into big honkin' pieces so that I wouldn't be left with a lot of leftovers. As it was, I had to freeze some of the bbq beef, and we're still trying to finish off the cupcakes and salad before we leave to go on vacation. Jareth seemed to enjoy his cake that day:

Later there was more playing. Once it was unloaded and the presents were opened, Jareth spent time getting rides in his new wagon and checking out his new bubble mower. RainMoon's daughter had a blast pulling him around the yard while he hung on and laughed. I got him to stop for a moment so I could get a picture of my cool birthday boy in his shades...

Yeah, I know. Lots of gratuitous kid pics. Whadda ya want? I'm a mom. I'm so totally smitten with my little guy I can't help it.

Don't worry - if you haven't seen enough of Jareth already, there will be more tomorrow when I talk about Mother's day. Then we'll be caught up with most of the exciting stuff just in time for me to go on vacation and get some pics of something other than my child. Since he's staying with Brian's folks while we are away.

I am so going to be pining for my child while we are away...

G'night!

First, the actual birthday...

First was Jareth's actual birthday, on Friday. I'd worked it out so that all my errands were done on Thursday, and the only thing we had scheduled that we had to leave the house for was his Kid Rock class. He was upset when we got there, but for some reason warmed up after about five minutes. In fact, it was the first time I'd ever seen him participate so much in that particular class. I can only hope that missing it next week won't affect that at all. I'd like to see him enjoy this one more. We won't be signing up for it again yet after this session though. I did sign him up for another gymnastics class. Since the usual one is bumped up an hour and starts at 9:00 am over the summer I signed him up for a saturday morning one instead. Brian is excited, since that means he gets to take him to it! I've been loving watching Jareth learn to climb and try to learn to jump (he squats down and then stands up really fast and looks really disappointed when he doesn't just go bouncing up into the air!), but Brian has been missing out on all this great stuff. When he found out that there was a chance he would get to take Jareth to one, he looked excited so I put that one down as first choice. It wasn't filled up, so Brian will take him to that one starting in June.

After Kid Rock we came home and I began the great "cook-a-thon" in my kitchen, with a bonus of laundry running in the machines downstairs. I gated off the stairs and let Jareth have the run of the living room and kitchen while I was up there and occasionally blocked him into just the living room when I needed to tend to the laundry. I spent almost the whole day cooking and baking until I had 90% of the stuff ready for the following day's party. My friend, RainMoon, dropped in for a while to help keep me sane and help rescue the batch of cinnamon swirl cupcakes that was determined to stick to my brand-new non-stick pans.

Of course, it's the devil's food cupcakes that were really amusing. I stuck those in the oven and then pulled it open when they were supposed to be done and looked at the color of the cupcakes in horror - they were all dark brown and burnt looking! It took me a moment before it occurred to me that chocolate cupcakes are generally a nice rich dark brown color and that the batch was, in fact, perfectly cooked and ready to be cooled and frosted. See how frazzled I was getting? Oy...

Later, Brian came home and I made him cook the dinner for that night, considering I could hardly stand anymore. I'd worn gym shoes all day, but my flat feet and the hard flooring in my kitchen just do not do well together, especially right after a day of running errands. After dinner, we gave Jareth one of the (not burnt) devil's food cupcakes with two candles in it:

I have some video off my camera too, of him blowing out the candles. He actually blew them out right away, as soon as we set the cupcake down and we had to re-light them just to get pictures! In the end, he enjoyed the candles more than he did the cupcake - he kept pointing at the lighter and the candles and the empty holes in the cupcake where the candles had been, wanting us to light them again. We lit some of the table candles and let him blow those out instead. I don't think he ever did finish the cupcake.

After dinner, Brian took care of some stuff around the house, helping get everything ready, while I blew up balloons. Forty of them. *phew* Then, before I tied all the strings and tinsel onto them and bagged them up for hanging the next morning, we let Jareth play in them:

I have video of that too. We kept bumping them around him and letting them bounce off of him and he laughed and laughed as he tried to hit back at them. It helped me feel a little better about having spent most of his birthday shooing him out from underfoot in the kitchen so that I could cook all that food! I mean, my crock pot was quite literally boiling over it was so full. Lots and lots of food. More than we needed. Especially with vacation coming up. I had to take some of the BBQ beef I made in the crock pot and put it in the freezer for later.

Although I'm happy for the leftover jello (with madarin oranges and marshmallows... mmmm) right about now. I think I've got an ear infection and it's all the way down one side of my neck so that it's painful to swallow about now. Ow... Jello good. No chewing needed there. Well, not much anyway.

More on the party and Mother's Day still coming, but that's enough for tonight.

G'night!

Technical Difficulties...

I haven't been able to post here for the last couple of days. Ironically enough, just as my son's birthday comes around and I take a gazillion cute pictures I want to post. Not to mention I had a "deep moment" earlier today that I might post as well. God forbid.

Sometime within the 24 hours after my last post, the DBI cgi module apparently became corrupted (and I only vaguely understand what that means, but certainly not enough to figure out what needed fixing). Thus, this blog, To Our Children's Children, and DragonBytes were all shutting me out from posting as they were all run from the same installation of Movable Type. I'm still running the older version as I'm not able to justify the $70 for the personal edition just yet. I'd need that for any blogs that Brian is writing with me. Otherwise their free version would work fine. Oh well. It just means I don't get all the new bells and whistles yet.

I went to post on Friday evening and found that I couldn't. I dropped an e-mail to my web host's (Cleverdot.com) customer support and groaned unhappily as I figured it was unlikely I'd get any help until... well... today, actually.

To my amazement, he/she/they? worked on it all weekend long and on into today until I just got home from errands to find an e-mail suggesting I test it out to see if they had fixed it. So far, so good. We'll see if this actually posts...

If it does, then I won't have to edit out the following:

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you Cleverdot Person/People!!! I am an internet junkie and very, very glad to have my little space back online to post at!!! Thank you!!!

Okay. Expect more posts from the backlog of info of the last couple of days. We've got Birthday, Birthday Party, and Mother's Day posts to be written up, complete with pictures! Also - the countdown until we leave for vacation begins!!

And boy do I ever need a vacation. More on that later.

My little Joe Cool...

Yesterday, while I was out, I went and bought Jareth some clothes for his birthday. He's got a cooler gift from us coming too, so I'm not going to actually bother wrapping his clothes. I also finally picked up some sunglasses for the kid so we'll quit losing him underneath his hat whenever the sun is out. He does like to play "where'd you go???" under the brim of it though. Today we got to try the new sunglasses out while we went to gymnastics class and then lunch with a couple other moms in my stay-at-home-moms group. He got a couple of comments on his "cool shades" and wanted to wear them for quite a bit of the time we were at the restaurant...

After that, we came home and he got to run rampant in his room and part of the upstairs hallway while mommy sorted out all the laundry. Oooh.. big fun for mommy. I followed that up with something like six hours of cleaning - on a room that nobody will even see on Saturday - the laundry room! It's one of those rooms we tend to shove stuff into to get it out of our way and I almost couldn't get in there to do laundry anymore. It was one of those "enough's enough" moments. Brian helped when he got home too, otherwise I'd still be in there working. Instead, there is now actual floor space again and 85% of the stuff in there is neatly organized. The other 15% is not vital and is out of the way enough that it can wait until I've recovered. Probably until sometime after the vacation, because I'll be too busy cooking tomorrow to do more than go in there to finish the laundry itself. And cleaning other areas of the house - you know, the ones people will see.

Hopefully I'll find time in there somewhere to actually tell my son it's his birthday. Because tomorrow is the actual day he turns two.

He's already growing too fast for me to keep up with! My wonderful little two-year-old, walking, talking, little guy! Wow! Simply wow!

Happy Birthday tomorrow my sunshine!!!

More Marketing Crap in the wind...

Okay, so I can deal with the small annoyance of having to get past the coupons and suggestions for a car wash while I'm getting my car filled with gasoline. I can deal with a lot of crap. In fact I generally do.

It's when the new crap shows up that I have to blink in surprise and wonder what the world is coming to. You'd think, for example, that the grocery store is already full of marketing ploys. There are bright, shiny boxes, bags, and jars of "marketing" all over the entire space! But no... they have to take it yet one more step further, don't they?

So today, as I went shopping for the remaining supplies needed for Saturday's party (Jareth's second birthday is Friday so we're throwin' the usual shindig at our place), I got to at least have a cart without advertising on it. Most of the carts have mini "billboard" ads on them these days. I get a cool one for Jareth - the front end of it is shaped like a truck with two seats and steering wheels. I can buckle him in and he has a blast riding around the store. Now if only the cart itself wasn't a bear to manuever and tricky as hell to unload at the conveyer belt...

But hey, at least I didn't have to see that one extra ad.

Aparently the toy in the box isn't enough though. Neither is the cross-brand marketing schemes, nor the sales and coupons. Nope. Now we've got television at the checkout.

WHAT?

Oh, yeah... it's not television - it's ads. On a little television screen facing you as you wait in line. In every line. The bastards. No wonder they only had two lines open when I got to the checkout. And one of those was 10 items or less. Yeah - party planning - like I had 10 items or less. Bah. At least someone finally opened another line while I was waiting and had the courtesy to invite little old me to be the first one to use it. I hadn't been the only one in the really long line unhappy about it. But I was the only one with a kid I think, which is probably why I got to have it.

I didn't end up having time to really watch the screen, but I saw enough to be rather annoyed. It's one thing to thrust advertising and coupons at me as I'm collecting my receipt. It's another to trap me in line and force me to watch their damned ads. I thought that's what all the "impulse aisle" crap was there for - last minute yummies to get me to buy more? Oy...

I think I'll have to go back to shopping at the "little" version of the store. You know - the one they never upgrade with the newest toys because they don't have enough customers in that area to warrant spending more money on it? Yeah. That one. Where the guy in the vegetable area knows what I buy for the iguana, and the gal at the deli knows I like a specific cheese to be in stock. That one.

At least it's not as bad as making the poor cashiers have to hawk stuff at me like they've been doing this week - telling me about their "specials" all the time. Grrrr. I'd quit the job - that's like abuse in my opinion!

Okay, okay. /rant off. Done now.

G'night!

Clearing out some piles...

Today has been a flurry of papers and phone calls as I try to get some stuff on my desk organized better in preparation for the next few weeks. I've sorted out about four to five inches of crap (most of which was catalogs for kid's toys that I had wanted to reference for Jareth's wish list) directly into the recycle bin, and some other stuff moved over to my "to be filed" pile. The rest is at least in smaller, more manageable piles as I wait for things to start, finish, or otherwise move forward on them.

I got Jareth's wish list together today finally, as well as ordered something for him from Brian and I. The other items he gets from us will be shopped for directly at the store and may involve mostly clothes. We'll see.

We also figured out the menu tonight so now I've got to finish my shopping and get cooking. I was going to wimp out and do catering (pizza or something at least) but somehow I've let Brian convince me that we should do it ourselves instead. Of course, because he works off at an office, "we" becomes "me" in quite a few instances. Oh well. *whips out the trusty crock pot and the apron* I'll figure something out.

The irony there is that I've been telling all the nice partygoers that they didn't need to bring any food with them to the party, figuring we were going to do the catering. I passed on a whole lot of opportunity to make it a pot-luck kind of thing. And I'm not the sort of rude person that would make one person bring something when I so specifically told everyone else not to. Doh. I am asking the in-laws to bring lawn and/or folding chairs. Otherwise we're gonna have a few grassy butts when ours don't turn out to be enough.

Unless it rains. Then... um... we're indoors mostly. Eep. We could have as many as 30 people including us. In. My. House.

Breathe Amy... Breathe...

Pray for some sun people. Do some anti-rain dances, or whatever it takes, but I really need good weather on Saturday.

G'night!

Picture Perfect

I thought, for tonight, I'd throw up a couple of pictures from the Chocolate Festival on Friday. The tulips were so beautiful that the ones I took of him by the fountain in Long Grove turned out really vivid! I just had trouble getting him to look up enough at me to get pictures under his hat. Eventually I took the hat off and got a good smiling shot.

G'night!