OMG

I was avoiding finishing my homework this afternoon and came across this video about a guy that named his baby "Sarah McCain Palin". And he didn't tell his wife about it until after the fact!



All I can think is oh my God...I don't care how much I supported a candidate, you just don't do that to an infant. I would lose my mind and kill my husband. I mean, I really think I would. And what happens if that ticket loses? Does the wife get to change the kid's name to the one she wanted? (Which was something like Ava Hope - way better in my opinion!) I can not even imagine what the mother must have thought. I mean really. OMG.

Presidential Debates

I'm sitting here watching the debates, and I just can't get over how funny it is. Regardless of who you're supporting in November, you have to admit, this debate worked out like a generational divide. Obama's talking to McCain like he's patting his grandfather on the head like "the old man is crazy, he's losing it; he can't remember what he's talking about anymore or keep his facts straight". McCain just keeps talking about his record like our parents and grandparents talk about the good old days. McCain on the other hand, keeps laughing at Obama like "this kid just has no idea about how the world works; damn kid just thinks he knows better than I do - What does he know?" This whole debate is reminding me of political arguments I have with my republican-leaning father. Yes, he's a republican, but I still love him :)

This debate is just cracking me up - and sadly it's not going to settle anything anyway because the arguing isn't going to change many minds. I'll be glad when this is over in another half-hour though, because McCain's attempts to smile are looking so pained and strained I'm afraid he may bring on a stroke and settle this whole thing tonight all by himself!

Dr. Horrible

Some magazine I read did a bit about this online mini-movie - Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog. It stars Neil Patrick Harris - Mr. Doogie Howser himself - and I love to watch him on "How I Met Your Mother" so I thought I would check it out. It's kind of a kitchy romp...not flat out hilarious but definitely funny. It's about this evil villain, his archnemesis the superhero, and this girl that he falls for. I'm posting the first act here - if you like it, the other two can be found at Hulu.

Soapbox: Palin

Before you read on, you should be fully aware that yes, I do consider myself to be a "bleeding-heart" liberal - and therefore I'm sure I am biased in the political debate that currently rages in this country regarding the upcoming election. However, now that McCain has chosen this Palin woman - and I am fully convinced that he chose her mainly due to that particular point - I am having a really hard time staying off my soapbox. I find it hilariously ironic that she voted against sex education - how's that working out for her now? But what is most concerning is that although she may be anatomically a woman, she does not believe in any women's rights issues. Other than perhaps equal pay and the belief that a woman should be president...or at least vice president until the old man kicks off. Admittedly, I am a pretty big fan of Jon Stewart, but as someone who is also a parent of daughters, I so greatly appreciated the point that he made last night at the end of this interview with Newt Gingrich:



People can say that she's just the vice president...but she'd be second in line and you never know what will happen. And in the meantime she would also be the Senate tie-breaker vote. This is just not the woman I want to see anywhere near the White House. Hockey mom my foot - she's been too busy pursuing her own career ambitions to have any real family values...

Back to School

Not that I really have time to post right now what with my backlog of papers to grade, lessons to plan, etc., but I just had to take a moment to post about the grad course I'm taking this fall. I was a little worried that it would be a lot of work on top of all the stress of starting a new "job" at school. As it turns out, I think I'm going to be OK because it's like an intro to computers type of class. The husband is gone tonight so I'm working on catching up on my homework and I literally had to giggle at one of my assignments for this week. Go to Blogger.com (hmm...now where do I find that?) and take a quick tour to learn about setting up a blog. Seriously.

The big guy upstairs must be looking out for me or something. I don't know what I would have done if I would have had too many new and difficult things to do for a class this semester. Most of my other classes have been pretty involved as far as actually building and using web tools. The crazy thing is, although it's kind of basic, I do hope I have time to keep up on the reading - the book looks really interesting. When I finished my undergrad program I never would have imagined myself becoming a tech geek, but that seems to be the goal now. I hope to never be one of those teachers nearing retirement that has no clue about what's going on with the latest technology. Maybe I lucked out and was able to squeeze into the tech savvy generation...

Crazy Days

It seems like there's been a lot going on lately. Or at least I've been extremely busy, but I'm not sure there's been a lot happening that's very interesting. Let's see...school started a couple of weeks ago. My class is horrid - ok, I take that back, four members of my class are horrid - and they exhaust me. It literally seems like we've been in school for months already. Me thinks that does not bode well for the year. Ah well, hopefully someone will invent Ritalin that comes in a plug-in form and we'll be right as rain before you know it.

To add to my stress, we've been dealing the last two nights with some kind of @#$!%! hoodlum teenagers vandalizing our cars that we park on the street. Sunday night they must have stolen a 5+ pound granite landscaping rock from some other neighbor and drove by and chucked it at our cars. It hit the top of one and then flew into the back of the van and damaged that too. (Thank God our deductible is low or I'd really be screaming.) Then this morning at 3am the doorbell rings and it's the police AGAIN, this time they (and I'm assuming it's the same lunatics because we really generally do live in a safe neighborhood) had taken ours and our neighbors recycling and dumped it on top of our car. Luckily there seems to be no damage from that (but glad I didn't put out the glass and aluminum!!!) Seriously, if I wasn't afraid of being ate to death by mosquitoes, I would sleep on my porch with a shotgun. (Yes, in case you're wondering, I am a country girl at heart.) Not that I would shoot them, but it would be worth it to watch them piddle themselves. Though it wouldn't be safe to have a loaded gun because at this point I think I would be too tempted.

So you can see how between kids at school and delinquents in my neighborhood I'm having a week. And it's only Tuesday :(

On the upside last week, my friend Holly turned me on to this great book series - it's called "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer. I started reading them last weekend and the last book in the series actually came out this weekend so I zipped through that on Saturday and finished it Sunday morning. It's hard to describe - kind of a vampire romance, teen novel, fantasy type book. They were easy reads and pretty good. I especially liked the last one, mostly because the themes are a little more adult and were easier for me to relate to. The only thing I didn't like was that they were too predictable, at least to me. I'm used to Harry Potter, you have to figure it out-kind of books. But they were definitely enjoyable and I highly recommend them if you like those types of books. (And I have all four of them if anyone living near me needs to borrow them!)

Single Parenting

The vast majority of the time, I don't know how single parents do it. Especially with infants...I would go crazy. But this week I've had my own little foray into doing it all on my own and it really hasn't been that bad. The husband has been gone all week for a work thing, and it has really been a less stressful week than usual. Which I find more than a little depressing. Not that I don't miss him, I do - but it's actually been nice only having to keep track of and pick up after two people. And sadly the two little ones are much better about actually doing the things that I ask them to do to help out or can be at least be cajoled into it. It probably also doesn't hurt that my expectations for them are lower! Or that I'm still off work this week, although I have been in to school every day since my school starts back on Monday. But still, it's sad that my husband leaves town and my stress level drops dramatically. I can only think that it's because I have one less person to become frustrated with.

I don't hold out too much hope that my relaxed mood will last though. Hubby comes back tomorrow and the closer it gets to school starting, the more anxious I'm bound to get. I'm really excited to be changing teaching positions for next year; I'm just not very big on change in general and I really want to be prepared and have everything go well next week. The beginning of the year sets the tone for the school year, and for a variety of reasons I'd like the year to go smoothly!

Shopping Spree

Well, the family all seems to be healthy again...at least for the time being anyway. This weekend we went on a semi-shopping spree. We got the girls a new bed. The little one hasn't turned 2 yet, but she was trying to climb out of her crib and in the process kept getting her chubby little legs caught in the spindles. We debated whether to get her a regular bed since they share a room. We finally decided on a trundle and found one that also has storage at the bottom. They both seem to really like having something new that they're allowed to climb on!

I also finally convinced my husband to let me buy couches. Our old sectional had recliners in it and literally had gouged a huge hole in the plaster in my living room. We're looking to hopefully be moving in 2-3 years, so I'm really getting into "fix up the house" mode. It didn't make sense to fix the walls until we got something new that wasn't going to tear them up again. So now that I've got new furniture, we can re-paint - but I have no idea what neutral color to paint the walls or what good color scheme will go well with chocolate brown couches.

So if you have any good ideas, please let me know! Once we paint, I'll need new curtains and possibly a new rug - my husband will be so thrilled. He hates to spend money on things for the house. Or rather, things that are not electronic. In our 100+ year old house, I am just excited to get a room to the point where I can decorate it, as opposed to worrying about fixing plaster, putting up drywall, or stripping wallpaper. Have I mentioned our kitchen is also under minor renovation too? I think just about the time we get everything looking good, we'll be moving!

The Plague

I swear, my family has come down with the sinus infection plague. Either that or our house is trying to kill us, I'm not sure which. For what seems like the last 2 months, my youngest has been sick; the older one has been sick for the last month. I was sick over Memorial Day weekend, and now I'm sick again!! So now we're all back on antibiotics, and Lucy's don't seem to be working so I'm guessing she'll be back at the doctor AGAIN this week. Literally, Elle went to the doctor on Monday, Pea on Thursday, and me yesterday. Thank God we have insurance! I can't afford to move out of my house right now (unfortunately!) but I'm wondering if it would be worthwhile to buy one of those air purifiers. At this point I would do anything to avoid spending all summer wiping noses!

Right now Elle, who we affectionately refer to as Imelda (as in Marcos), is throwing a fit because I took off her sandals. From the minute she wakes up in the morning and gets out of her crib, she has to put her shoes on. It's like she doesn't feel dressed unless she's got her shoes on. Her current obsession is with the pair of Dora sandals that Grandma got her a few weeks ago. They are pretty much constantly attached to her feet, and I'm pretty sure the neighbors can tell when they've been misplaced or removed from her feet! Her other favorite pastime involves putting on my heels or sandals and tromping around the house in them. And my husband thinks that she's going to be the tomboy - ha!

TV and vacation

I am very quickly becoming addicted to this show on TLC called Jon and Kate + 8. If you haven't seen it, it's a reality show about this couple that has a set of twins and a younger set of sextuplets. The parents on the show are very real - a lot of times they remind me of my husband and I. It just amazes me how they can handle eight kids, especially when most of them are all the same age! My husband hates this show and just can not understand why in the world I would want to watch someone else's screaming kids after dealing with my own for hours. In reality, it's just nice to see someone else handling way more than I have to and dealing with it without killing anyone. I figure if Kate can deal with 8 kids all day, I should be able to find within myself the patience to deal with my two when they are screaming at each other over the 15th toy fight of the evening. It's also nice to see another couple dealing with the stress of kids and how that's effecting their relationship. Granted, there's is much more of a strain, but they handle it well enough with each other that it reminds me to put more effort into my own marriage. If they can do it with eight kids, it's possible for anyone.

In other exciting news - today is my first day of summer vacation! Not that it will be much of a vacation since I'm going to be spending quite a bit of time getting my new classroom set up, organized, and arranged. I've only got about 5 weeks off, and I'm taking an online class too, so that doesn't leave a whole lot of relaxing down time. Oh well, at least I should have a nice pay raise in the fall - assuming of course, that my school board ever gets around to approving our new contract. But that's a whole other story...

Summertime

I love fireworks. They are beautiful and magical, and just one of the simple summer pleasures that I can't do without. The park that we live near has a festival the first week of June every year - tonight was the big fireworks display. It's such a great way to start the summer (even though summer doesn't officially start for me until next Wednesday when school finally gets out!) And one of the few great things about our house is that we can watch the fireworks either from our front porch, or as I did tonight, from the large window in the girls' room. Unfortunately I could not get Pea to wake up for the show...which is a shame, since she also really loves fireworks. At least both of the girls sleep like rocks, so the noise didn't disturb their sleep at all. But it's sad that they missed it. We've only got a few more years left in our current home (God willing!), and I'm sure wherever we end up won't be nearly as convenient for things like this.

At any rate, the 4th of July will be here before I know it, and we'll definitely keep the girls up for the fun that night. So at least they won't miss out completely.

Best Laid Plans

(NOTE: I decided since I may be posting pics on here from time to time, I probably should follow my own (school) rules and not put the girls names on here - just in case you were confused later...)

I was so looking forward to this weekend. I didn't have anything planned - no "to do" list (as usual), nothing in particular to get done. I just really wanted to slow down this weekend and spend some time with the girls and J and not really do anything in particular. This month has been so busy, and Lu has been sick for most of it, so I thought it would be fun to just have some family hang out time before summer hits and flies by like it usually does.

Apparently, God had other plans. Pea started getting sick on Thursday afternoon - by Friday night I was taking her to the doctor. Not exactly the sitting-in-bed-snuggling-with-a-movie night I had in mind. But Lu is on her second round of antibiotics so it's really not a total shock Pea is getting sick now. I wasn't feeling too great that night either. I knew I was coming down with something, but I couldn't really tell what. Needless to say, I was back at the med center on Sat. morning when they opened. I was really tired, had fever, chills, and swollen glands. Along with some chest pain which was pretty concerning. The doctor wasn't much use - she told me it was bronchitis (which I'm sure it's not) and gave me some antibiotics. I got so dizzy I couldn't even drive myself home and had to call J to pick me up. Luckily my parents had just gotten to our house to visit so it wasn't too much of a hassle. I was in bed, miserable and completely useless, for the rest of Saturday. I felt better yesterday though, and today's been ok. I've at least been able to get out and about. The swollen glands are still giving me a sore throat though, but I should be ok to go back to work tomorrow. Thank God, because with the girls sick I'm running out of sick days! Luckily we've only got a couple of weeks left.

The one saving grace this weekend was that J took pity on me and cleaned the house thoroughly. I am determined to kill whatever virus/bacteria monster is lurking in my house!!

Indy

If you have children - or if you're one of my friends, ever get around to having one - I strongly suggest if you're ever in Indianapolis stopping by their Children's Museum. It is truly awesome!! We took Pea to Indy for a little one-on-one time vacation last weekend. We took in a play at a children's theater, which she thoroughly enjoyed. It was very nice - the kids wore their pj's and had a snack, and at the end the actors talked about theater vocabulary (like props, set, and light designer) and answered questions from the kids. But her favorite part was definitely the Indianapolis Children's Museum. I couldn't believe her favorite part was the dinosaur section!

I'm keeping this entry short tonight because I'm highly sleep-deprived. Elle has some kind of virus and has been running a high fever for the last 3 days. Meaning, of course, that I haven't slept for about that long. It's a shame Benedryl has no effect on her...

Eco-Me

I think I am gradually becoming an eco-nazi. Don't get me wrong, I don't run around wearing hemp clothing or berate strangers for not recyling a soda can - but I think I'm definitely well on my way. I took an environmental science course in college, and it totally impacted the way I think about the Earth and how we function on it. I found the whole thing very interesting (short course summary: we're killing the planet and we're all going to die) and honestly if I was any good at regular science, I would have really enjoyed minoring in environmental science. But as it is, I just don't have a very scientific brain. But I digress...

I think I've replaced most of the bulbs in our house with the CFL's. And I've been recycling like a fiend for a few years now - God bless Springfield for making recycling a free part of trash pickup. I'm teaching Paige how to sort everything into the bins now - and still trying to train the husband to recycle. He's getting better, but there's still a lot of nagging involved. I'm so glad that eco-friendly is becoming a mainstream thing now. It's so much easier to find information and products to help people be more green. I am loving that!

A couple of weeks ago I got a compost tumbler...I've wanted one for like 5 years now and finally broke down and got a small one. My neighbors have compost piles but I just couldn't handle having snakes on it or worrying about it attracting rats or something. I guess I'll know in a couple of months how well it works. I'm big on gardening and this year, since Paige is big enough to finally (kind of) help out, we're loading up the vegetable garden. I'm going to try to hit the farmer's market more often this year too. Buying organic food is too expensive most of the time, but in the summer at least we can eat our own. My next big green move is to get some of the reusable shopping bags to take to the stores. I've really gotten to hate the plastic ones - I try to reuse them but I still end up with more than I can use and always forget to take them to Walmart to recycle. The other thing on my list is to start a paper recycling program at my school. I talked to my principal about it this year but just got too busy to take it on myself. And if I can talk my husband into taking the kids to daycare next school year, I'll be able to walk or ride my bike to work!

Why I should hate my friends

So I'm at a meeting at work the other morning and my friend 'Jan' starts telling me this story about this wacky video she found on YouTube the night before. I guess her son is planning on doing one of the annual local 5K runs and she was looking up information about it (or something). Low and behold, she came across this video and got such a kick out of the fact that she knew someone in it. And my first thought is...Oh no, tell me he didn't.

Now, I should have prefaced this with the fact that my husband and I have this friend...we'll call him 'John'. He has a lot of free time on his hands and was apparently a documentary filmmaker in a past life. Or maybe he's missing his calling by working for the State. In any case, how would most people feel knowing that possibly very unglamorous footage of themselves was stored on the Internet for all (and by all, I mean co-workers) to find and see? As luck would have it, I did not run into John that day (which is probably lucky for him!) and didn't even have time this week to take a look at the video until this evening. Now all I can think is - is it wrong to envy a man for his editing skills?

Excitement and Expense

We're getting a new fridge this weekend, which is exciting - for me at least. Our current refrigerator is probably close to 30 years old (no really!) and I've been waiting for it to die for some time now. Luckily I've been able to sock away the money to beat it to the punch. We were looking at spending an extra grand and replacing the microwave, dishwasher, and stove also - it'll have to be done anyway before we put the house up for sale in a few years - but unfortunately the news from my union regarding negotiations is not sounding too good. We can't afford to spend too much money if a strike is imminent...so I'm settling for just a new fridge for now.

Speaking of new houses, I'm having a hard time right now. It seems like everyone we know is moving and after 6 years in this house the gypsy in me is getting antsy. It also doesn't help that I literally have toys scattered throughout every room in my house! The bigger the girls get, the smaller the house seems. My goal for some time now has been to build a house when we move - right now the husband and I are having an ongoing argument about that pipe dream. He says we won't be able to afford it, and I say we make too much money not to be able to. Granted, we do have debt and pay an insane amount of money for daycare for both the girls. And he also seems to think that saving for retirement and college funds is somehow a priority. Personally I think he just relishes being a killjoy.

Old Spice

So I am home at Easter, helping my mother cook the meal. This is what I find in the spice drawer.


I'm not even kidding - one of the containers had a date stamp of 1977 on the bottom! Whether or not that was the expiration date, I have no idea, but am I the only one that is a little disturbed by this? These spice canisters are older than I am for God's sakes! In any case, I figure they'll soon be considered "vintage" (if they aren't already), so I'm going to find a place to put them in my kitchen.

That is, of course, assuming I ever get anything more done in my kitchen now that we've stripped the wallpaper. The weather is finally supposed to start warming up next week - on my last 4 days off! - so I'll be back outside in my yard most of the time. The last two years have been hard to get anything accomplished...pregnancy and infants don't lend well to yard work. So this year I'm determined to get some things done. Of course, as usual I'm pretty sure I've got a longer list of projects than I will ever have time to accomplish them. But at least I've got a plan, so we'll see where it gets me by then end of the summer. As of right now, the grad class I was going to take this summer is full, so I may end up with more time on my hands come June. That really wouldn't be so bad - it would be nice to have a semester off to do some things that I like to do for once.

Holy Smokes

I do not know how stay-at-home moms do it. I don't know any personally, but I have an extreme amount of respect for them. I have been off for about a week and a half on my spring break, and yesterday I thought we were going to be at least one child shorter on next year's tax return. It was not like this when I was off work and staying home with just my oldest. That was great - we shopped, we played at home - lots of good quality time. With two of them at home, school vacations are not near as relaxing as they used to be. I actually think I am more stressed now than I am when I'm working full time! Don't get me wrong, I love my girls. And they love each other. It's just that when they are not loving each other (which seems like every 5 minutes when the TV is not on) it makes me crazy. Luckily the youngest one is almost 20 months old now and getting much easier to deal with. We may keep her after all. She is awfully cute - she got her first haircut yesterday.



It went surprisingly well - no screaming or fighting, which for Elle is saying something. Of course, it probably helped that I went armed with a Mickey Mouse video!

It's a miracle

Check it out! Only two and a half months since my last post. I hate to be too optimistic, but maybe I'm improving with this whole blogging thing...ha! Nothing much is new since my last post. The girls are both doing well; Elle is 19 months now and talking up a storm. Pea will be having a birthday next month. In the past couple of weeks she's gone to not one but two birthday parties. I just can't bring myself to do the kids party thing yet. The thought of having to organize activities and then manage 10 to 12 preschoolers makes me ill. She'll just have to wait until maybe next year (or the year after, or the year after that) for her own bowling party - in the meantime she can settle for a "Cars" cake, a few decorations, and immediate family.

In other news, we're remodeling our kitchen. Luckily it's not a complete overhaul, but eventually we'll be replacing everything except the cabinets. Right now I'm looking for a refrigerator - that is just a headache in and of itself. I'll be glad once we've found one that fits.

The weight loss plan isn't going so well. I had been working out regularly and doing ok with it, but the last couple of weeks have been so busy with sick children and things at work, I've been a complete slacker. I'm going back to the gym tomorrow (first time in almost 3 weeks) so I'm just hoping I haven't lost that much muscle tone. I've got a 5K in 2 weeks, so I have GOT to get refocused and back to work. Wish me luck!

Good Lord I am a horrible updater

As it turns out, apparently I am also too busy to keep up with even an online journal. I think having a 3 1/2 year old and a 16 month old will do that to a person. I've been off the last 3 weeks, but never once did it cross my mind to work on this blog. Looking back it seems like I started it about a year ago, then revisited about 6 months later, and now I'm back! I did a crap job of keeping to my New Year's resolution of keeping this journal last year, so I don't really know what makes me think this year will be any different...but what the hell, a girl can dream. And as that happens to be one of the few things I'm really good at, I'm going to run with it.

This is the time of year that my dreaming and planning ahead always seems to run away with me. It drives my husband crazy. I can't help it - Some people get to the New Year and look back, I always look forward. I'm generally not one to make resolutions (mainly because I'm not good at them) but this year I have a couple of them. One is this blog, the other is to lose some weight...along with apparently everyone else in America. I actually was doing pretty good on the second goal this summer and fall until the end of September. I was running in the mornings with a couple of friends until the weather got colder. It was great - before work so I didn't have to worry about being tired later in the day or busy with dinner and the kids; it worked right into my schedule, although I did hate getting up early. I didn't really lose much weight (but I wasn't watching my diet either). My clothes fit better though, which was nice. But then J (the husband) broke his foot and my exercise program evaporated. I've been a lazy louse since then and I'm feeling it.

The problem now is that I can't afford to join a gym - we had to switch daycares at Christmas (long story there) and we'll be shelling out over $1100 a month starting next week. It's too cold to run outside, and I know myself well enough to admit that without a workout buddy I'm not likely to head down to my very cold basement and hop on the elliptical machine. Then there's the whole problem of the kids and when to schedule in a workout.

One way or another, I just hope that I can make something work. I'm really determined to get back to a reasonable size - I just hope I can find the will power to do it!