hibernating

I've heard rumors that it's cold outside today. The internet told me it was 51 degrees at like 10:00. That's cold for me now. In a month it will feel warm I'm sure, but I'm not ready for it yet. So Tabitha and I are hibernating like a couple of bears today. She's even been eating a ton all day like she really is fattening herself up to survive the winter. I have not eaten much, mostly because my digestive system has been mad at me and hurting me and making me nauseous since last night. It would have totally been a pajama day except a) Tabby spit up on her pajamas and then peed on them while getting her diaper changed so I was a responsible parent and put clean clothes on her, and b) I hadn't showered in 2 days and decided a shower was a priority today. So I took a nice, hot, long (aka 20 minute) shower during her first nap this morning and it was glorious. I am, however, still wearing pajama pants. Yesterday I was all ambitious and house wifey and made dinner and a yummy peanut pie for dessert. Today I'm staring down the dust under my coffee table and trying not to pee my pants as I sit in my glider all day while Tabby naps in my arms and wakes up to frantically nurse again every 20 minutes or so.

We were due for a lazy day at home. Our social calendar has been hopping for the past week! There was Thanksgiving of course (when Tabitha managed to pee on the floor while lying on her changing table), then we spent half of the next day at at a Mexican restaurant with Ilya and Mercedes. We got a wee bit drunk on margaritas, thank you for asking. Monday we had a lunch play date with my friends Lucy, Gara, and Mercedes, and Tabby's friends Ellie, Marly, and William. Monday I also had book club (anther Mexican restaurant=more margarita drunkenness) and coffee club the next morning. Coffee club is agroup of stay at home moms who meet once a month to discuss interesting, non-kid topics. For example, yesterday we discussed women in politics and why the US has never had a female president. Lucy (of bravofam.com fame) has been introducing us to various mom/baby activities. She's my social coordinator. Thank God, because otherwise I'd be going crazy here alone every day.

Ok, back to big important things like reading funny websites and doing Christmas shopping online.

baby/book club, and When Roaches Attack

Last night was my book club. Those of us without kids are pretty outnumbered by this point, although only 2 babies were along for the evening. Plus one fetus. One of the babies was the one who was born the day after last month's book club. He was so tiny, so cute. Dang, I want a damn kid.

So I was apparently a roach magnet today. I killed a total of 4 roaches throughout the day. #1 was in the house this morning, I just squashed it and then flushed it. Pretty straight forward. #2 was in my office, on the windowsill. I smashed it and then tried to feed it to Marc Anthony. He wasn't interested. I guess he likes to kill them himself. #3 was in the store. It was freaking huge. I mean, gigantic. Like 3 or 4 inches long. I couldn't step on it, it would have been like stepping on a small child. So I sprayed him with some bleach, waited for a few minutes, then scooped him up (still alive) and dumped him in the toilet. He drowned. #4 was interesting. I was plunging one of the toilets outside and thought I saw a roach swimming around in the bowl. I thought I was imagining it, until I lifted the plunger and the damn thing was trying to crawl out to save its own life. Obviously I dunked him back in and flushed. Luckily the toilet didn't overflow (plumbing is one of those neat things I get to add to my resume thanks to the museum) and the roach joined his buddies in the sewer. I guess he was hanging out in the plunger and I just killed him coincidentally. He deserved it.

Alfred loves peaches

Last night I went to my book club meeting. I could have blogged about it last night, but then I'd have nothing to write about for today! It was kind of nice, there were only 5 of us there for a change, it was nice to be able to actually be able to hold a conversation and hear everyone. Usually there's so many people that you don't even end up talking to half of the people there because the table is so long. And I like all the girls who came, so that was good, too. 2 of them were pregnant. One is about 7 months along, she's due in October and doesn't know what she's having yet. Also, she's freaking gorgeous. The other girl was due yesterday. Her stomach sticks out so freaking far, I don't understand how she stays upright. She's having a little boy.

The book we read wasn't my favorite ever, but we didn't really talk about it much because only me and one other girl had read it. I don't know why I even bother, except that it gives me ideas for new things to read. And I like to read.

On a different note, teachers went back to work today for most of the counties around here. It's a good thing I didn't try to hold out for a teaching job, because obviously, that would not have worked. I heard through the grapevine that there was an unofficial hiring freeze and that they would hire like crazy the first 2 weeks of August, but if that's the case, I certainly never heard about it. I applied for tons of jobs online, mailed out resumes to several principals... nothing. It's kind of discouraging that I didn't even get a single call for an interview. I never got a call about any of the other types of jobs I applied for this summer either. I got 2 emails, one acknowledging my resume and one saying they had filled the position (2 different jobs), but that's it. I guess I'll just hang out at the museum for the rest of my life, since I apparently can't get hired anywhere else. Thanks a lot, Cornell!

on the wagon

So I write the checks for work every week. I noticed a couple of months ago that whenever I wrote a check to Alfred for reimbursement, I made them out to "Alfred," his middle name, instead of "Max," his legal first name, and the name that is on our account. You'd think I'd know how to write a check to my own husband, but apparently not. Luckily our bank takes it anyway, so I always just write them to Alfred so they don't get mixed up and go to his dad somehow.

I had dinner last night with some girls from my book club. One of the girls brought her 6 month old son, who was so cute - he was smiling at everyone, and kept staring and smiling at the girl next to him and trying to hold her hand. I had a giant, delicious burger with bleu cheese, and loved every bite. However, I am currently back on the wagon (the eating healthy and exercising wagon - I fell off for a week or so, skipping workouts, eating lots of delicious bad things like cheesecake, cookies, m&ms, ice cream) which is a good thing, because it meant I was able to resist a) the chips with bleu cheese b) the fries (got fruit instead), c) the Oreo milkshake, and d) the bakery a few doors away that a couple of girls went to after dinner, which features giant Oreo cupcakes, for one thing. Mmm, oreo based desserts. I felt very virtuous. Dang, I've been looking for food pictures for like 10 minutes and now I'm hungry. I want a cupcake. Good thing I'm back on the wagon.

I had left the office at about 5:30 for my dinner, Alfred was planning on going to his parents' house for dinner. When I called him at 7:40 as I was leaving the restaurant, they were still at the damn office! Crazy people! So I got to sit and watch TV while he ate with his family.

Also: rich people have roaches, too. There was one in the kitchen last night. I poisoned it with some Clorox cleaning spray, and Alfred squashed it. Little bastard.

happy birthday Mike and Ellery!

That's right, same birthday, a year apart. Both of Alfred's siblings have nice easy birthdays for me to remember, Emily's is on Christmas. Mike is 25 today and Ellery is 24. I was going to call Mike at 6 when I woke up, because it would have been midnight there, but I decided not to be a dick in case his phone was on and I woke him up. He has to wake up early these days. And I'm a nice person. Of course, Alfred pointed out that he's called me in the middle of the night before, but I always have the volume on my phone turned off so it's ok. I learned that lesson in college. The first week of classes my senior year I got a call from a drunk Mike at like 3am, waking me up and pissing me off. But when I woke up for class at 7 or whatever time it was, I called him and woke him up in return. Good times.

Ellery's going out tonight, so we're not celebrating his birthday with him until Thursday. He has requested a raspberry chocolate cheesecake for his birthday dessert. I am happy to oblige. I can only assume it will be delicious. How can that combination of ingredients not be?

In other news, 2 of the girls in my book club have had babies in the past week. A girl and a boy. This brings us up to 7 total for this year, with another 3 due between now and October. It's like there's something in the water. Maybe when we move up here...

in 24 hours it'll all be over

Thank you for all the opinions yesterday, even though I only got 3 votes on my poll and 1 was from me. (I did get comments and emails though, so thank you for those as well.) I'm not sure which one I'm going with yet, but I'll let you know. I'm sure that's exciting for everyone! As for the shoes, unfortunately I don't own any closed-toe heels. It wouldn't matter if I did, cause we're not going home tonight anyway. I feel like the shoes I wore to Ro's wedding would look ok, but I wouldn't be able to walk after wearing them for 7 hours. So I might have to hit up a shoe store/Target after work. We'll see how Alfred feels about that. :)

The reason we're not going home is that we've taken up residence at Ilya and Mercedes' house. They're in Spain for a couple of weeks, so we're making sure their animals and plants survive, and saving some gas in the process. We spent the night last night and will be there until Friday morning. I jogged around their neighborhood this morning. It was bloody hot, and it was only 8:30.

So who are these animals we're taking care of, you ask? Well, here they are! This is Becca (on the left) and Brielle (on the right). I wanted to take a picture of them cause they were sitting next to each other looking out the window, but as soon as they heard me they turned around. They are Siamese, if you please. (I'll have that song stuck in my head the rest of the day.)


This morning I was petting Becca and she was purring like crazy, so I assumed she loved me. When I stopped, she went and started rubbing herself on the walls and cabinets, still purring. So she loves me like she loves the wall. Nice. Oh, and we can't forget Oscar III.


Last night I had my book club, which was fun. There were 4 babies there, plus one due to be born in 6 days. There was a 10 month old girl there who I hadn't met before, she had almost no hair, 4 little teeth, and the biggest, cutest grin! The moms were all nice, too. Of course, we didn't talk about the book. I even bought it (used) this month and read it in 2 days. You'd think I'd learn my lesson, if we do talk about the book it's only for like 5 minutes. This month's book was "The Pact" by Jodi Picoult. I've read a couple of her books before, but I can't quite decide if I like her or not. They're always good stories and hard to put down, but when I finish them I'm not sure if I actually enjoyed it, if that makes sense. Last month's book was "Saving Fish from Drowning" by Amy Tan, which I liked. It wasn't her typical Chinese mother/daughter book. There's your culture for the day. You're welcome!

I'm really, really nervous about tomorrow. I'll be there from 7:30 until at least 2, so no post till later in the afternoon.

not much to report

One of the girls in my book club is in labor! She's the first one due in a string of about 7 or 8, one's due every few weeks from May to October. She's actually 3 weeks early, so hopefully everything goes fine. There were 4 babies born in the group this winter, now with the new crop starting our meetings should be pretty lively! Luckily there's a few of us staying "strong till 2009" so I'm not the only one getting my baby fix whenever we meet.

Anyway... Ellery got an early birthday present the other day, so he gave us a ride around the driveway last night. Door to door service. Pretty sweet, huh? Alfred wants one, of course. But I don't have a car, or a computer, so I think I get the next toy, right?

Slow blog day here. So go look at this website I found yesterday. It's funny. This is my favorite one.

stupid sun

I think I have a sunburn on my scalp. We went for a quick 8 mile walk on Sunday (quick compared to the 11 mile walk we took last weekend) and I had my hair in 2 braids. I think I got a sunburn where my hair was parted. Even worse, my brush has metal bristles and some of the little plastic ends have come off, so every time I brush my hair little metal needles are digging into my head. It hurts.

I was in a funky mood last night. I had my book club meeting and it didn't go like I was hoping. For one thing, I was sitting all the way at one end, so I couldn't hear a lot of the conversation. I was also surrounded by moms and kids, which was fine because they were all super cute, but lots of mom talk. It's tough to join in when you're not a mom. Then on the other side of me was a girl who brought a friend from work, so they spent a lot of the night talking to each other, which meant I couldn't hear or really participate in the conversation on the other side of them. I was just kind of frustrated from not really having a good time, plus I was kind of tired and sore from our long walk, and we were spending the night at my in laws house, (which is nice, we have our own space, but it's not quite as nice as sleeping in my own bed), and I just got a little cranky. Poor Alfred. He might say I was more than a little cranky.

But then two of my friends and my sister told me they read my blog, so that made me happier :)