DragonBlog

The Flowerless Child...

I don't think I've mentioned the "Flower Phobia" on this weblog before. If I have, and you've read it, then hush up while I tell it again. Since there's been context with which to bring it up and all...

It's a totally irrational phobia, based in part off of a memory I have as a child. My grandparents owned a summer home in Door County, Wisconsin for a while. I loved that house! Or, at least, what I remember of it involved wonderful things. A porch-like kitchen. A room that was halfway up the stairs, off to the right as you went up. Rooms upstairs, one of which I got to sleep in. I'd hear the birds and see nothing but trees outside my window when I woke up there. Something about the way the sunlight shafted into the room left an impression on me as well.

There was also a deck outside. From it, you could see the lake, and there is a painting I have that my mom did of that view. There is also a painting out there, somewhere, that she gave away before dying, of the tree-lined roadway leading to that house. I forget who she gave that one to. Like many things I loved of my mother's, I'll probably never see it again. The one of the lake was originally given to a friend of mine, who was like a part of our family. She gave it to me a few years ago, and I've been keeping it safe. I want to re-frame it and put it behind glass so that it doesn't get damaged.

But... back to the house. On the deck, was a hammock. Where I remember my uncle sometimes lounging when we went up there during the summer. It was just such an occasion that brought upon the "Flower Phobia"...

I had been picking the wildflowers on the grounds, collecting up all manor of ones I thought were "pretty" (I was probably maybe what? 5 years old? at the time). Proud of my "bouquet" I brought it up onto the deck to show it to my uncle....

and ALL the petals spontaneously fell off the flowers!

Okay, okay. Before you say it - I know that's not possible. That it couldn't have happened that way. But that's how I remember it. A child's mind can imagine all manner of incredible things, and that what mine conjured up for some odd reason. I don't know what brought that memory to fruition, just that THAT is how I remember it. And thus, I'm afraid of flowers.

It's not ALL flowers specifically. My favorite flower is daffodil, and I'm quite alright with roses and carnations. Although when the petals begin to fall off of the rose, I get a little creeped out. It's the petals that get me. And the stuff in the middle - the polleny stuff? *shudders* And the worst, for some odd reason, is the water they've been sitting in. Especially if it gets "squidgy" in there. You know - mucousy and icky? It makes me gag. Then again, I don't deal so well with most mucousy things, so that's probably another issue altogether. I'm not much good with the messy. Nope. I do keep trying though. In baby steps. My babies' steps, actually. Jareth gave me a little trial by burrito just the other day. He had the bean stuff it in his eyebrows for goodness sakes! I mean ewwww! But I got him clean, nonetheless. Brian was laughing his head off that I can change how many? poopy diapers a week and still get all "eeewww" over a little burrito slime. I see the humor. I really do. But it was still squidgy. bleh.

Anyway, that's the story. All the petals fell off, or at least that's how I remember it, and I've been creeped out by certain flowers ever since.

Another odd little fact to add to the chalkboard of my odd little life.

G'night!

Current Mood: weird

20 questions plus...

I don't normally do these, (although I actually had one sitting in my e-mail inbox for one of these days), but Lissakat tagged me, since I've made it to the presitge of being on her friends list. Not wanting to damage my standing, I will thus comply... *grin*

1. Your Middle Name:
Marie

2. Age:
*looks around to see who's watching, then whispers* 34, but don't tell anybody... shhhh.

3. Single or Taken:

Taken. Very much so. *stops for a moment to look dreamily off into space*

4. Favorite Movies:
Fifth Element, The Princess Bride, The Matrix, and Monsters Inc. to name a few I could watch over and over again.

5. Favorite Songs:
Behind Blue Eyes (The Who), Don Quixote (Gordon Lightfoot - don't laugh), Russians (Sting), Masters of the Universe (Juno Reactor), and Barbarian Horde (Gladiator Soundtrack), to name a few again. I love music.

6. Favorite Bands/Artists:
The Who, Gordon Lightfoot (I said don't laugh!), Sting, Juno Reactor, The Bad Examples, Rob Zombie, Hans Zimmer, James Horner, and then some... (yes, it's a bit of a mix there)

7. Dirty or Clean:
I like my house clean (though I feel like it never is) and my mind dirty? hehe...

8. Tattoos and/or Piercings:
Ears pierced (one twice) and a small tatoo of a winged dragon on the back of my right shoulder.

9. Do we know each other outside of LJ?
Yep. In fact it took a while before I even knew you had a LJ.

10. Whats your philosophy on life?
Learn. Grow. Be. That's the really, really simplified version anyway.

11. Would you have my back in a fight?
Very probably.

12. Would you keep a secret from me if you thought it was in my best interest?
That would depend on the secret, but most likely no.

13. What is your favorite memory of us?
The first time the drum circle was held at my house.

14. Would you give me a kidney?
Maybe. I'd have to think about that.

15. Tell me one odd/interesting fact about you:
After discounting all the things I shouldn't say on the internet? hmm...
I have a phobia of most flowers. There's an odd one for ya. Yes, there's a story behind it. Yes, I know it's a stupid phobia.

16. Would you take care of me when I'm sick?
If we lived closer to one another I would have been doing so during this rough pregnancy of yours already... (she's had a really rough time of it!)

17. Can we get together and make a cake?
That would rock. Do we get to eat it afterwards too? *evil grin*

18. Have you heard any rumors of me lately?
I heard you're pregnant... lol. Otherwise, not lately. *evil grin*

19. Do you/have you talk(ed) crap about me?
Once or twice, yes. But nothing truely bad.

20. Do you think I'm a good person?
Yep.

21. Would you drive across country with me?
That would totally rock. Nevermind the impracticality of actually doing it. It would be a blast!

22. Do you think I'm attractive?
Yes.

23. If you could change anything about me, would you?
I'd make you move closer so we could get together more often!

24. What do you wear to sleep?
Comfy shirt (t-shirt, tank top, etc., depending on weather), and my undies (sorry, not giving details on those).

25. Would you come over for no reason just to hang out?
Yep. More so if you didn't live an hour away.

26. Would you go on a date with me if i asked you?
See the part where I'm "taken" above.

27. If I only had one day to live, what would we do together?
I suspect if you only had one day, you'd probably choose your beloved to spend it with. However, if you chose to spend it with me (for some odd reason) I'd probably take you to do something you'd never done before - climb a mountain or something like that - for that one last "experience" to add to the ones you've had. Maybe arrange for a massive drum circle group and buffet to be waiting at the top when we got there.

28. Will you repost this so i can fill it out for you?
Here it is. Your turn!

The Yellow Roman Princess Room...

It's finished! Well... mostly. There's a few minor touches that need to happen still, but my daughter finally has a bedroom of her very own...

(click on the image to go to the gallery)

Maybe it's the ends of the curtain rod (seen above) or the way the white trim and such contrasts the yellow. I like that the white baseboard brings out both the yellow on the walls and the warmth in the wood floor. We're very proud of the floor, since we both managed to hurt ourselves sanding that sucker. We liked the color of the natural wood so much that we left it unstained, and just varnished it over to protect it.

There's still hardware that needs to go on the windows, which ought to be pulled out and painted to match. You can't tell at a glance, but they are still the old white color from before. I painted the trim around the windows, but haven't pulled them out yet. Then I have handles and new locks for them. I'll get to it eventually.

I also have a small shelf unit and possibly a little cupboard that I'll be putting in there, as well as a desk that needs to be painted (my sister painted it black and silver... when she borrowed it. eww. NOT gonna match until I sand the sucker down and paint it.) I wanted to paint the dresser white too, but the wood looks nice enough that I might not worry about it yet. At the very least, it could use refinishing. I also need to sort out her drawers, now that I've got the space to work in...

We also need a fresh new mattress before she gets old enough to move onto the bed itself. Meanwhile, however, I'll probably get a pretty comforter to throw on top or something. The only trick will be that I'd like to match the lamp above it, which Brian and I picked online. The sheer curtains were actually ON the windows when we got the house, along with some nasty blue drapery. I kept the sheers and washed them and got the idea to use them for her bed. When she's old enough to use the bed, we'll adjust accordingly. I really doubt they would stay up very long if we leave it like that!

But, most importantly, she FINALLY has a bedroom. Which means she can start sleeping in it. We hope. We got the crib set up and useable Monday night, but she's yet to successfully sleep in it. For the moment we're making the transition slowly.

Yay!

Now, on to the next project... the garage. We have a work day planned on Sunday where Brian's family is going to help us clean it up and organize it some. I have no idea how that will play out. There's a LOT of stuff jammed in that garage and more queued up to go in there. Ugh.

Well...

*sound of cracking knuckles*

Back to work.

Later!

Current Mood: accomplished

I'm a Deviant of Many Talents now...

This makes me want to learn how to do Flash animations. If I had time to do such things that is. I could play with that little skeletal dragon guy for hours if I had such time. Poor guy. He just wants to eat my mouse pointer is all. He hasn't been FED.

So I made a DeviantArt account finally. I won't be using the journal function, since I do that here. But I'm popping up some artwork and photographs I've done. I still want to put more of my photos up, but their upload stuff is a tad slow so I'm just putting one or two up now and again as it occurs to me and I find myself able to point and click. Typing is tricky while breastfeeding, unless she passes out. Which she just did, so now I'll have to get to work while she's not noticing so much...

Naturally, her eyes just opened again. She's been REALLY needy today for some reason. I'm wondering if those top teeth are pushing at the gums now that the two bottom both seem to be fully out.

Can I just say - OW? Not often, mind you, but sometimes... OW!

Her bite is actually about equivallent to her mind-shattering, piercing, over-dramatic wail from hell bark. Ow. At least she usually remembers the difference between my breasts and her toys. Usually. But damn - don't get your fingers too close...

More another time. I think she's drifting back out again, so I've gotta make good use of my ability to type.

Current Mood: busy

The Thing About Allergies...

I've had allergies... well probably for a really long, long time now. I'm starting to understand why my mom thought I was such a rotten little girl - because I was downright cranky! Except it never occurred to my mom that I was being bad because I felt miserable. I remember having excruciating headaches in junior high and high school - the kind where you want to smash your head against the wall because doing that might somehow make it better. The kind where all you want to do is crawl into a dark, SILENT, black hole and clutch your head in an ice-cube-filled grip of death until it goes away. At one point they did an expensive scan on my head (an MRI I think) and declared "nothing wrong." They said it was stress and gave me some pills that were supposed to relax the pressure or something but did absolutely nothing at all. I guess it never occurred to anyone to think that I might have some allergies. My mom always suggested I was "whining" and nothing short of a fever would let me stay home from school, much less be deserving of a doctor's visit. She took the extremist opposite to her mother's hypochondria.

Around the same time I was seeing doctors to get my irritable bowel figured out, I also had a doctor suggest I had allergies. I tried a few things and *BOOM!* found that an antihistamine/decongestant combination made most of those headaches either go away or become somewhat bearable on a daily basis!

WOOHOO! *does the dance of joy*

Mind you, I'd LOVE to be off the damned drugs. Especially since stupid MORONIC people decided that making recreational drugs out of the pseudophed component was a great idea for fun and profit, thus making it frustrating to get what I need. *sigh* And it doesn't always work. Sometimes it's not enough. I probably ought to be on something prescription anyway. But I'm not going to try and resolve that until I've got some proper health insurance. For now, I just suck down Tylenol when the headaches get bad and pray for the day I move to an area of the country where it won't be so horrible. Yesterday I started doing some serious web searching to try and find said area. Looks like I may convince Brian to move to the desert after all. The New Mexico & Nevada areas are looking nice to me, based on the current mold spores status on weather.com.

Because Jareth's got my allergies too. As evidenced again yesterday. While we were out, attempting to enjoy Heritage Fest with Brian's folks, he threw an absolute fit. Repeatedly. Despite the fact that we technically were already giving him medicines (yes, plural) for the allergies. But I recently switched decongestants, and I'm not altogether sure the Claritin is doing a good enough job. I couldn't take Claritin - it upset my stomach for some odd reason. I worry that it's doing the same to him.

He was cranky from the moment I woke him up and it just escalated with every little thing that didn't go his way. Eventually, I bailed on the whole day after I realized that he'd been exposed the day before too - since the house we'd gone to a party at had been all open and airy. I normally love to air out the house myself, but nowadays I am relying on the filter in the vent system to help keep the allergens inside to a minimum to make both myself and my son have a bareable environment to exist in. It seems to me it must be getting worse each year. At least it feels that way. Last year I tried blaming it on the pregnancy, but this year it's STILL bad. And obviously awful for Jareth.

Of course it doesn't help him that my own patience is shortened by my itchy eyes and throbbing head. The "distraction technique" only works so well if you don't already need distracting yourself. I'm waking up feeling swollen and miserable, and not sleeping well in the first place. Especially on mornings I need to wake up early, since I can't take anything before bed the night before or I am so drowsy I CAN'T get out of bed! I toss and turn, beat my pillow to a pulp, and fling the covers on and off the bed - sometimes for hours before I can finally pass out. Last night was one of those nights. Meaning something in the air has messed with me. And Jareth too. My poor little, cranky, allergic guy.

The only GOOD thing about all of this is that I KNOW he's got allergies. It means I won't just make the blanket assumption that I've got a "bad little boy" on my hands. Because he's NOT. He doesn't hit other children (although cats beware!), is generally polite (except when he's testing our authority as kids will), uses coasters AND napkins, and loves to be my little "helper" around the house and with his sister. But he can become an inconsolable, unreachable, screamer for no apparent reason lately. And while there are occasional things that might set him off, he's generally not like that. It's GOT to be the allergies.

As a parent, I feel helpless to fix it. I can't fix it entirely for myself and he can't take the stronger stuff I'm on. They don't seem to make the right combo medicine for kids either - most of the stuff with decongestant includes other stuff he doesn't need, so I don't want to give it to him. I don't want to have him on anything that's going to make him drowsy all the time, or treat him for cold and flu symptoms when that's not the problem. But, obviously, the decongestants that don't have the extra crap aren't working.

Damn. Damn, damn, damn, damn...

I hate having to give him all this medicine. I'm more frustrated than ever. If keeping him indoors all the time were an option I'd almost take it. But he's a little boy and needs to run and play. As it is, I keep him indoors more often than I want to try and shield him from it. I'm starting to look forward to the colder weather, just to give both of us some relief.

*SIGH*

Meanwhile, I've added 7 new images to the gallery. Including this one:

If you click on the picture, it will take you to the gallery to see the rest.

Current Mood: cranky

Well, Crap!

I have a fiesty little girl on my hands. Oh, yes I do!

Seems she hates the whole "day care while mommy's at class" thing. I've been told she's scared of the providers. I guess she's been wailing and carrying on while she's there. And it's been getting worse.

And just when Jareth was starting to make friends with the other kids too...

*sigh*

There's this term for some of my parenting "style" according to some of the moms' online discussion boards I'm on. "Attachment Parenting." I guess you apply it to people who don't let their kids cry it out, breastfeed, wear their kid in a sling, and/or otherwise spend lots and lots of time and doting attention on their kid. Being a stay-at-home-mom, this is something that has been natural for me to do. My kids are at the TOP of my priority list, right there with their daddy, and I do my darndest to give them as much of my attention as I can.

But in this case, it's come back to bite me in the ass.

Figures.

Mind you, these were the ONLY people she didn't scream about during the interviews. I considered that to be a really good sign. All the other potentials that held her seemed to have her angst right off the bat. But these two she seemed happy with. I took that and ran with it, especially after talking with them and reading the handbook they even gave me, outlining how they follow all the guidelines and requirements that they are supposed to as a daycare. Despite the very normal pangs of seperation I was feeling every time I dropped the kids off, I was feeling very positive about leaving them there overall.

So, imagine my surprise to find out that they have given US notice, because they don't want to take children who are afraid of them, so they won't traumatize my little girl! While, on the one hand, I appreciate them doing it, but...

Damn.

Damn, damn, damn, damn!

So now we're back to Brian arranging to take two half-days in place of one of his off days, so that he can watch them while I'm in class. Which means there's a possibility I won't even take class next semester, because us not getting any weekend equivallent time is just TOO MUCH as it is! Only having one full day with my husband each week and constantly having to share that day with a thousand other things that come up... Let's just say it's putting a serious strain on our relationship already, so it's only going to feel worse for the rest of this semester. I hate having only one day to spend with him each week and having to actually spend it working on remodeling or other projects instead of doing "family things."

We're going to get started on setting up the workshop for me sometime next month. I just hope we can get it set up before the semester is over, so I have somewhere to work once class is done. Taking the class helps me keep the momentum right now when it would be too easy to drop the ball while I try and get everything else taken care of.

I'm so overwhelmed...

*sigh*

Current Mood: cranky

Happy Birthday Brian! (a tad late)

Just a quick note, since I really haven't had a chance for much personal blogging recently. But I didn't want it to get much further before I mentioned Brian's birthday. Which was... yesterday. The 7th.

No. I DIDN'T forget. I just haven't had time to blog about it is all. I gave him gifts, Jareth made him a card, and we all went out for a nice Thai dinner last night, since that's what Brian picked. There's also going to be a small family shindig at our place on Sunday, with his folks and sister.

So I did tell him "happy birthday" already. I just didn't say it here is all. So....

That's all for now folks.

Current Mood: busy