Finally, a non-sponsored post. Aren't you getting tired of this? But it's putting some money back into the bank. I am counting on this money to get us caught up on summer bills. And maybe (cross my fingers and wish real, real, hard) put some money aside ahead of time for the new baby. I'd like to be able to take a few weeks off from focusing on the money side of things when the baby is born. I'd also like to buy Christmas presents for the family, and get the car paid off early, and my last student loan... and while the money so far has been there I start worrying about next July's electric bill. This summer was a nasty shock. Let's not do that again.

Today's paid posts, if approved and duly paid in the course of time, will pay thirteen dollars. If I get a few more this week, and if I can keep it up, there's my hundred a month in extra income. And every penny helps right now. And... I hate to keep going on and on about money. It sucks. I hate budgeting. I hate living like this, always running just short enough to pinch by payday. Check to check, nothing left. And yet? Unless something changes either in prices or my ability to get out and bring in some more money it will stay exactly the same. Hence, my whoring of the blog to whatever company will pay. Hence the ads that feed the extra pennies created by my readers clicking on them into the Goldfish Cracker Fund.

None of this, mind you, is made easier by the fact that today I'm now firmly in the middle of the cold, with my Boy tied for Most Miserable Family Member, and with the Toddler very snuffly and non-compliant about her naptime. Plus last night while I was out of the room she tripped on her own feet and fell hard on the floor, managing to catch her lip on a tooth (or something) and now she has a fat lip.

Today it's easier than ever to do online stock trading from the comfort of your fuzzy bunny slippers. The hard part is to find the information needed to turn a profit instead of becoming a stereotype. Wizetrade has the tools and information to help make dreams a reality. Community forums help to connect the users of this tool, so you no longer operate solely on your own. Other unique features include free customer support of the software products and free updates so your software remains current as long as your membership in the site and use of the product remains active.

Wizetrade software features the ability to conduct realtime simulations using actual data. They will help track the markets in realtime. They offer tutorials in how to determine a good deal, take advantage of it, and help you achieve your goals.

I posted about Hotel Reservations a couple of months back and since then have heard from a few of my friends who booked with them. (thanks, you know who you are!) And what I said before holds up even more these days. Gas prices are up, airplane tickets are up, hotels are up, leading me to wonder what if anything has gone down? Well, in the past week I've started to see gas come down a bit. I'm not holding my breath anymore. Right now at Hotel Reservations they are running a rebate special, the rebate runs from $20 off a 3 night booking to $100 off a 12 night booking. This is on top of the normal wonderful customer service available, by printing the rebate form, filling it out, and submitting it (through the normal method of rebate submissions) As always, when filling out rebate forms please make sure you read the fine print and follow the instructions. This not only speeds processing time, but if you double check the instructions you can often avoid having it kicked back for "insufficient backup". Which is a nice way to say that you forgot to send the upc or original receipt.

As before the prices remain competitive. It's hard to make sure you get the best bang for your buck these days- there are so many sites that feature flashing banners and lights and generally acting like my two year old. Buy me! Reserve with me! Me, Me, ME!!! It can get annoying. Most of the discount sites all vary- they'll have a few good deals, but I always have to check around just to make sure; and two out of three times I'll end up spending the money on someone else. And with Hotel Reservations? I don't have to check fifteen other places before I know I'm getting a good deal. That's worth a lot.

This post has been sponsored by:

A long weekend filled with blood sugar questions, concerns, and failed attempts to nap. There were several neat things, like seeing just how long noodles in chicken soup will hold up when simmered in a crockpot all day long. There was knitting. There was the inevitable battle over keeping the Naked Toddler clothed.

And then there was tea...

At the end of this weekend comes Monday. A monday morning, such as Garfield hates. A day when you want to pull the blankets back over your head and crawl under the pillow; devoutly wishing and praying that Tuesday will come soon and deliver us all from Monday. My throat hurts. The Boy is coming down with a cold. The Toddler has the sniffles. My mom isn't saying much, but I'm fairly certain that she's starting to get sick too.

It's too hot to be sick. It's too pretty outside to suffer inside. What's a girl to do? Sip on endless cups of hot lemon juice with honey, say a prayer that my sugars start behaving a bit better, and catch a nap before the day comes crashing in on all of us.

One thing that I learned by watching Good Eats, and which was seriously reinforced by the way in which I'd like to run this house, is that a unitasker really has no place in it. It goes for my appliances, my wardrobe (except for the fuzzy pink slippers), and my medicine cabinet -well, there are a few things in the cabinet that are serious unitaskers. Like the Nyquil. And all prescription drugs. But as far as antibiotic/topical salve/burn/bite/etc stuff? I do not want to deal with ten different creams and lotions. I hate having to guess at which I think is going to work. And what if it's a combination injury? One cream warns not to get it into an open wound. Another says do not apply to burns. What if I spent the day at the park, got a massive sunburn on my leg, and skinned my knee? My solution to this is melagel. A nifty little thing that has the tea tree oil, and the petroleum jelly stuff to keep the good stuff in and the bad stuff out of the wound. Because another thing I really can't stand is having to apply a huge bandaid to a minor scrape/scratch/ anything non-seeping that does not require a bandaid as containment. I've found that exposure to air helps most of my wounds heal better. Also, I've got a toddler who immediately gravitates towards anything unusual sticking to me, and who tries to either put it in her mouth or yank it off. Cute when it's jewelry or a new barette. Not so cute when it involves pain and injury.

Going, going, gone! Sometimes I think I'm auctioning off my time to the highest bidder. That would be the one who screams the most. Writing those IOUs to myself for naps, downtime, playtime... It works all the way up until my body fights back. Maybe I should make it into a movie? I'd fill it with small fuzzy animals, handsome young men in uniform, and elephants. A lot of kids like elephants, right? It would sure be better than laying awake hours and hours, until the Boy sends me to bed early with orders to sleep. That's a little frustrating on both our parts. I understand his viewpoint; I really do. He can't just take a random day off work to help out and let me catch up on my personal shit... He can only do so much in the evening to lighten the load. It was one thing when I was pregnant, one thing when it was me and Tiff to worry about getting through another day. Now I'm pregnant again, and a mother to an active two-year-old, and I've got to stop writing those IOUs. For all our sakes.

Tonight's dinner is a vegetarian lasagna. When I get the recipe tailored to this family's abilities, I'll post the revisions over Here. Look for it tomorrow. And have a happy midweek, everyone!

Halloween the movie

Of scary movies, my favorite was a little known film called "the Nun". I'm always curious as the the backstory to series, to stories, I want to know what makes these characters do the things they do. On one level it makes it more accessible to me. On another level, it helps distract from the visual.

That's what the majority of horror movies are all about. There's a story, and there's the visual that makes girls jump into their boyfriend's laps. This is a well-accepted part and parcel of courtship... I remember quite a few films in which I turned to the Boy for my snuggles.

Halloween the movie by Rob Zombie is being released very soon. I've just started to see trailers on tv and the Net. This is one of them, in case you've somehow missed it:


What Rob Zombie is bringing to this movie is introducing you to the beginnings of the Halloween mindset. Where did it begin, where did Mike Myers start to terrorize people? And maybe on a more important side, why? Now, I've not seen the Halloween movies. I have only a passing familiarity with the premise; but this one intrigues me and makes me want to find out more. Plus the music will be cool, the visuals and choices of what parts to really emphasize; I'm not sure I can think of anyone else in the genre as able to do it as he is.

I'll be trying to talk the Boy into coming with me, to sit in the back row and hold me hand...

I was starting to get all depressed about thirty minutes ago; did some housework while the "girls" were out, took a shower, etc.; went to lay down across the bed and "rest" while feeling sad.

Then I started feeling the baby kick. Not a lot, but movement. I hadn't felt any for a couple of days, what with being stressed and dizzy and all, and had just started to worry again. And he kicked.

And I couldn't help remember what a miracle Tiff was, and is (duh), back when we would make a baby burrito out of her and nurse her to sleep. The thought that I get to do that again is just so.... much. So I'm not sad now.

Plus, I have chicken broth in a mug, and Tiff's covered in jello -despite the wipe-up after lunch, she's still got the red smears on her hands and on her shirt. And she's laying in bed trying to fight the Nap. So cute.

With the Boy so much into computer gaming, every now and again I have to peek my head into what else is available. Starcraft is one of the RPG's currently out there. With expansion packs, Starcraft 2 on the horizon, and several fan sites, it can be difficult to learn all the ropes without spending hours and hours playing the game. starcraft can be discovered at CreepColony.com, a fan site devoted to bringing together the players.

As far as RPG's go, I would give it a try if I had the time. With the Toddler, my time is at a premium, and I only wish I had more of it.


This post has been brought to you by the fine folks at CreepColony.com

Toddler Misapprehension #1: If you pull the blankie over your face, Mommy doesn't know you're still awake.

This is my daughter, not taking her nap.This is my daughter, caught at not taking said nap, and doing her best to say "Look, Ma, I'm not sleepy! I'm not sleepy! I should get up and play, right now, because I'm a big girl who does not need a nap!"
Unfortunately for her, I'm smarter than that.

Linoleum was clean but cracked. Dirt of the ages sunk into cracks between the tiles. Women in cape dresses of soft prints wore organza bonnets. Grocery shopping with my mama many years and miles ago. Times change. I'm in an area where prayer bonnets are non-existent, cape dresses likewise. If I want to see them I'd have to make and wear them myself; somehow I doubt my husband would accept me going that far back to my roots.

Pigheaded and stiff necked is what the court papers say of one ancestor in the palatine. The traits breed true down the generations with a certain body type and emotional sensitivity. Nobody will blink at those rare times when once someone stops mid-sentence to look straight in your eyes and deliver some short pronouncement. We don't speak of it. Maybe for fear that outsiders will misunderstand- maybe for distrust that someone will make too much of it. And the body type- as I get older my grandmother says I grow more and more like her mother. My daughter is my thirty-years-younger twin. I was my mother's. So goes a family. We are all parts of one puzzle no matter how many states or mountain ranges separate us. As the aunts and uncles and cousins begin to go their ways apart from one another, as our lives take us away and bind us to new families, it gives me a warm comfort. While we remember this family, while we remember holidays and early things, we're still together.

Traditions are good. Remembrance is good. Just be selective. Don't remember the harsh words, the tears, the family feuds over who did what to whom forty years ago. Remember the laughs. Watermelon at a picnic table while the sun sets and mosquitoes are competing for attention. Learning to spit the seeds at one another. The night you fell asleep talking with a cousin and watching movies. Youth can be a blessing- a going ahead with life.

Let it.

You know you live in a rural area when you're driving through the cul-de-sacs and see chickens roaming freely through the yards.

This makes up for the smell of hot cow in the morning. Although that particular odor has cut back a lot over the past couple of months. Either the cows got moved to a further off field or my nose has adjusted.

When we moved into this house, we had the movers stack everything into nice rows of cardboard boxes in the family room. While it meant we couldn't use the family room at all, it also kept the unpacking clutter away from Curious Toddler. That was more important to us; the unpacking fell mostly to me in the early days, as the Boy was busy reporting in at his new command . After a few weeks of dedicated unpacking, I fell behind. Way behind. So far behind that I stopped unpacking, and we were left with a family room full of half-empty boxes, assorted trash, and the odds and ends of stuff that we hadn't a clue what to do with yet. Those boxes have now achieved this state:Leaving the majority of all that fine space open, the carpet is visible, I have a sewing nook (out of camera shot) and the library has been moved into the family room to make space available in the third bedroom for both a guest bed and (eventually) a second nursery.
And here are the socks I have been working on for the past week. Plain, white, socks. They will be warm and soft and cuddle the feet of a warmhearted individual who has devoted most of her energy this past year in supporting me and my Boy, and loving the Toddler. Plus, it will encourage her to stop obsessing over the holes in the heels of the socks I made her at Christmas. Love you, Mom. Really. Now stop perseverating. We both need to set a good example for Tiff.

The way I see it, if I can find some sort of paid blogging post every few days, it's a consistent addition to the Goldfish Cracker Fund. Which is a totally great thing. It makes me feel better about the prospects of staying a housewife with two little kids, it lets me contribute something back to the household funds besides all my time and effort around the house. (What time and effort? Well, the Toddler doesn't tickle herself or play games alone, does she? And when I'm on my feet around here I can actually get a pretty decent rhythm going as a mom)

So that's my excuse for the sponsored stuff. This past 30 days worth of paid blogging has brought in $55 to the Goldfish Cracker Fund (GCF). Not shabby. The clicks everyone has been gracious enough to take on the sidebar has brought in $14 this month. As you can see, it adds to the overall budget and the amount is definitely worth the time it takes. And this is just starting out with one month of consistant work on my part.

Coming soon: pictures of socks. And other knitterly goodness. It's almost Toddler Naptime, which is something I'm not exactly looking forward to doing. Looking forward to the quiet, not so much to the struggle of getting her to bed. I'd let her give it up, except she really does need that nap. Not that she'll ever admit it...

Tomorrow or tonight there will be some pretty pictures. Until then, good luck and best wishes. Stay safe.

The world of sports is pretty much a blank for me. It is out there, but it doesn't have much of an impact on my household's life... unlike some others. My husband works with guys to whom this stuff is bread and beer. I think if they were forced to go without some sort of sports fix for all of twelve hours their minds would shrivel into a fetal ball, whimpering for like-minded individuals to talk to. Today's sponsored post is about the wonderful world of hockey. A good site to visit to read up on all current hockey-related stuff can be found at

http://www.hockeysfuture.com/nhl_entry_draft/ - hockey

. Draft picks, reviews, news on current teams/events/games, links to individual teams and the regional papers that would have the best coverage of their inner workings. And for those who want to delve a bit deeper than that there is a whole well-followed forum set up for further discussion.
nhl entry draft

http://www.hockeysfuture.com/nhl_entry_draft/ - hockey

I've not been making very good progress on my many projects this week. Reasons/Excuses for this include: playing with Toddler. Attempting to preempt the other adults in the house on housework. I realize this seems silly. Who in their right mind would argue at getting out of dishwashing, meal prepping, and laundry? Not to mention picking up, vacuuming, dusting, scrubbing, and all the other fun things that go along with homemaking. But it does get on my nerves every now and then that I'm being trumped at every turn. I would have to get up before 0800 in order to do these things. Instead of dragging myself awake at 0800 I want to do these chores around 1000. By 1000, these chores are usually done.

So what do I do? Smile and be glad I'm getting off the hook on many of the undesirable chores. The Little Bit is behaving rather well... I'm so not-sick as compared to where I was with Tiff that I'm on the way to being convinced that this is a male child. A boy child. oooh. On our way to that white picket fence world, two children- one of each, a husband with a full time day job that supports our family (fairly well, all the basics, few if any frills), and I get to stay home and bake bread while wearing pearls and a frilly apron.

Another item for the project list- spa socks. I want to start making a few pairs of spa socks to list on the Virtual Craft Show. Would there be interest in this from the AltMamas? Or anyone else? Remember: handmade socks are a rare thing. They're comfy, show a high level of "snob appeal", and above all they're the most comfy things I've ever put on my feet. Me, who normally puts on and takes off socks in my sleep due to perpetually cold feet. Which habit may have led to the pair of socks recently discovered shoved into a tissue box. Why is this? What was I thinking when this happened? Exactly how asleep must I have been to accomplish this feet? This is the sort of behavior which can lead to accidental sex with the Boy. How does one have accidental sex? Well, we were both asleep, and it had been a chilly night so we snuggled up. And this was back when he still slept naked. And, well, things sort of happen by themselves without us being fully awake until it's really pointless to stop.

I will point out here that this was well before we were parents. Since the Toddler, the Boy sleeps clothed. Less to remember to do should he be required to leap from bed in the night to go comfort/clean/change/feed the Toddler. Or any of the other many crucial parenting acts. Do I miss those days? Yep. Then I see my Toddler smiling at me, or giggling on her Daddy's knee, or doing any of a hundred things to make me realize that I'm the luckiest woman on earth at this moment. I miss the childless days. But I wouldn't go back to them for anything.

Like shopping online? Like the convenience of getting stuff you need without leaving the house or having to take off the fluffy bunny slippers? Then you also might like to save money while shopping. Sales are great. There are some great deals to be found on the Net every day of the week. The only drawback is how do you offset the shipping costs? Some places offer free shipping with coupons. Some sites offer coupons to those who do the work to look for them, and that helps shave the price down even further. And what can you do with a few extra dollars? I know what I would do...

Another coupon site I visit is ecouponcodes. Updated daily with all the latest codes from vendors such as Fashion Bug (love their sleepwear), Overstock, the Gap... and many many more. Check out the current Old Navy coupons and don't forget that their maternity line has uber-comfy clothes in flattering styles. Personally, I am hooked on the infant/toddler socks. Ecouponcodes also offers an RSS feed for those of you who like to use such things. Among their offerings: amazon codes, dell, hp... stores added frequently, coupons updated daily. Be sure to bookmark and check this site when you're shopping online, because it will help save dollars and cents off your purchases. This site has been around for two years, not that long when compared to some other sites, but two years can be a long long time to offer good deals consistently.

free coupons

This has been a sponsored post

I wish that I didn't have to set limits on my Tiff right now. I wish I didn't have to have all the hard work that comes with toddler-wrangling, just the fun stuff. Like catering to her every whim and chasing her around until she runs out of breath from giggling.

But that's part of the parenting gig. You have to be tough on the tough stuff. And not just tough, but consistent. There are certain rules that have to be followed, and while I'm not so fond of dealing with the reluctance of my girl to follow the rules, I'm less fond of the prospect that comes with a childhood of no rules. She's stubborn like I'm stubborn, and if she gets away with not following the rules than it's going to be even louder and harder later on. I think I can deal with the thought that Mean Mommy is my everyday identity. Fun Mommy only comes out when the rules are obeyed and her behavior is good.

Consistency. It's all about consistency. This will lead to a moderately well behaved child that I can take out in public. It's not a popularity contest. And even though Mean Mommy seems to be the bane of this child's existence and the author of every unloved decision and insistence- who does she run to when she bumps her head? Whose lap does she crawl into when she's tired, or doesn't feel well, or just wants to sit in front of her beloved Tubbies and veg? We spent a good 30 minutes in the Big Comfy Chair this morning, my lap completely filled with a long-legged wild-haired child. She tucked her legs to her chin, curled her shoulders over so her head fit under my chin, and snuggled. For the hope of these times I'll be Mean Mommy for as long as it takes. These times are the ones I remember when she screams at my feet because I won't do her bidding without the use of words. These times are the ones I remember when she throws her body against the walls rather than sit down and play quietly. These golden moments when my baby is in my lap and she smiles at me...

Those are worth every sleepless night. Every tear she inspires in me. Every bruise that her fists land on my shins. Just give me a golden moment every few days.

I can eliminate most of the human interaction once required to order a pizza. Tonight I had a serious pizza attack; this meant that I got "the Big Order". double breadsticks, double pizzas. Ordering online means that no one will get impatient as I change my mind twenty times in the ordering process. I stuffed my face with it, and now I can't stand the smell.

Is this what it means to be pregnant? Or is this just another shining example of what it means to be me? I binge, then I feel bad about the binge, then I want to get rid of all evidence that I did the binge.

Oh, and the pizza was delicious. We all stuffed our faces. It wasn't just me. What it means for me to binge on it is two slices, two breadsticks, and two cups of juice. Most people do not consider that a binge. For me? This is all my stomach will hold and even that is a bit of a stretch. Now I'm getting hungry for pizza again. For thin crusted plain cheese, and not for the leftovers sitting in the corner of the kitchen. Geez.

I lost a day. Wait. How did it get to be past dinnertime, when the last moment I clearly remembered of the whole middle of the day was lunch?

Oh. Right. HP7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Contrary to what seems to be most of the rest of the people I know, I wasn't waiting with bated breath for it's release. I was all mellow. I still am. The Boy read it. It was set onto my pile to read. I picked it up and started reading. It won't take me long, even. But... I am finding it absorbing enough to hold my attention in a way that I did not experience with books 5 or 6.

I did, however, finish a white sock this weekend. And I went to the store today to get a gallon of milk and some bread. I also inherited a big bag of yarn, color coordinated, and enough of it to make one afghan/bedspread for Tiff. Pink, purple, and white. This is a good thing. Free yarn is always welcome. A new project to ensure my hands stay busy? Even better. Bring it on, I say! Bring it on!

Also, Tiff made Cake with her Grammy this weekend. I got the pictures downloaded this morning. I leave you with this thought.

Last week an article ran in the Chicago Tribune about BP's expansion of their refinery. It seems to me that this article was a bit over focused on the increase of the plant's discharge, while ignoring the complete facts- not an uncommon thing in journalism among those trying to prove a point. I'm more used to seeing single minded journalism on the editorial pages though, and while yes, this post is sponsored by BP it's a disparity that I actually agree with. (Hey! Here's a wonderful thing. Agreeing with what I'm being sponsored to write!)

So let's look at this on a slighter larger level. The refinery's production is expanding enough to create 80 full time jobs after construction is completed. Better for the economy. During construction at it's peak: 2000 jobs. I've worked construction. Those jobs will be there a while. More production equals more gas, more jet fuel for the airlines, more energy for the total environment. While this country has been losing refinery capacity for quite some time, do we really think cutting back expansion is a good plan? Are not your pockets hurting every time you see the gas tank flicker on empty?

The detractors say, oh, but they're increasing the amount of discharge of ammonia into Lake Michigan! And other stuff! And it'll kill the environment! To which I feel the need to point out that they're not exceeding federal limits, they're not asking for special consideration and exceptions to be made. They're just going to be increasing the discharge proportionately to the increased capacity. Will you put your eye out to spite the economy? What's ultimately more importantly to us- is it a better future for the people living and working, is it worth losing the "cushion" provided by BP operating well beneath the federal guidelines?

You can find out more here: BP Whiting Refinery Facts

About a million years ago we went to a fair. Was it last week? Only last week? It seems much longer and much shorter all at the same time. Hm. We saw many things- lions, quilts, and chickens. I liked the chickens but they weren't very photogenic.

Here's a quilt.


Take a minute and let those colors soak in. Kinda like watercolored crayons, with lots and lots of pretty pointed stars that took oodles of work. And handquilted in pretty threads that matched all the pretty colors of the quilt. If I could wrap myself in a rainbow I'd want that rainbow to look kinda like this.

And then there were lions. I don't think you can see them in this pic, but the Toddler sure liked them. Holding her is my wonderful mama. As you can see, she was the Voice of Reason, keeping the Toddler from wriggling her way into the enclosure. Not that she would have tried. Her knack for getting into tight spaces seems to be limited mostly to the oven, dishwasher, and the linen closet.

What can I say? She's my girl.

Today could have gone a bit better. From the early morning wakeup of a small child who brightly demanded (and didn't get) her "tubbies!" at 1 AM, to the somewhat later morning wakeup when my Boy came snuggling back under the blankets. To the interrupted nap I had this afternoon, leading me to believe in the sad truth that I may not sleep again until tonight when I'll lay in bed staring at the ceiling until my eyes dry out.

This is why I have a husband, folks. Because after the few months he's had shore duty I've become incapable of sleeping without him and I'm too hormonal at the moment to sleep with him. And yet he will still willingly let me wrap one twig-like arm around his waist in the middle of the night and count his breathing. I think I can almost go into a trance that way. It does calm the anxiety. It makes me feel warm and comforted.

It's been a day or two of making bizarre phonecalls unassisted by the hormonal storm raging through my body. I hear what people are telling me and I don't know whether or not it actually makes sense or if this is the first sign of my going off the deep end with Little Bit. Everybody remember what happened last time? Good. I don't want to rehash it. Let's not go there. Let's go... to the beach! That's right, everybody will make sand castles and watch the surf go in and out. Very relaxing. I'll sit under the cabana and let somebody bring me cold drinks. With fruit on sticks. And tiny paper umbrellas.

And while I'm doing that? Another day, another post, another addition to the Goldfish Cracker Fund. My payperpost habit has approved another couple of ad-posts. No matter whether I decide on cloth or disposable diapers for the Little Bit, it's still a bunch of money that I'd like to bring in and help the household. Cause I can't just sit on my ass eating pretzels and kosher hot dogs all day. Can I?

http://www.fitnessdates.com - "fitness dating"

When I was still single and looking for a match, I tried several dating sites. Match, singles, and I'll tell you what most of us have already found out. It's hard to find somebody who shares your interests. The dating world really is a sea full of fish; there are hundreds of species and colors and varieties and how do we ever find the time to sort it out?

It's hard enough so why make it harder? Instead of the club scenes scores of tired office professionals surf the web in the comfort of their homes and fuzzy bunny slippers. I loved the freedom it gave me. Instead of hundreds of blind dates with total strangers I could get a feel for the person and only went on three or four of them. I think sites like this one do a good job by gathering people of like interests so that it makes the weeding down of all the possibilities even easier for that tired person sitting on their couch.

On Fitnessdates.com you can search by your preferences- man seeking woman, age, zip code. Profiles are blurbs with photos and registration is free. Like most dating sites, for certain levels of contact (messaging through the site, premium services) you will become a paid member- I've actually done that in the past with a certain dating site and had very good results.

If I had to go back out there and find another man, this is a site I would consider using.
fitness singles

Brief Update: The Little Bit has decided to follow in Big Sister's Footsteps. The baby is kicking my ass today. In between being sick and being semi-vertical, I may not be posting actual content until tomorrow. In the meantime, don't forget to help out with the Goldfish Cracker Fund. Everybody has been just wonderful in the past week and I'm proud to report that of noon today the earnings report says that you've provided two cute outfits or one jumbo pack of diapers for the new one.

Happy Dance.
Thanks to all.

Aren't long summer days when you're not feeling up to par the best times to curl up with a book? This weekend has been marked by the following books:
Hide
The Spellman Files
The Family that couldn't sleep.

And you'd think that nobody could read all of these things in 24 hours. Especially when you factor in sleeping for at least 12 of those hours. But I read fast. Freakishly fast. And I retain enough of what I read to pass a content and detailed essay exam afterwards.

So far my hands down favorite of these is the Spellman Files, although that may change. I'm only two thirds of the way through Hide. So far it's good, worth the library hold and reserve fee, and I'll keep this author on my short list of guaranteed good reads in reasonable time without too much thought and intensive imagination on my part.

Not fluff, but not Tolstoy either. Is that even a category? Don't remember. I find my own categories mean more to me than the Library of Congress or the Sears Subject Headings classifications. Everybody has such different tastes.

Hence the popularity of American Idol and Nova.

Little red wire shopping cart? check.
Bag full of "new" library books? check.
A weekend afternoon spent with my mommy while apologizing for never giving her a moment's peace as a small child, after spending a weekend morning with two little eyes staring at me solomnly over my kneecap? That's one of the best comeupances I could ever have wanted.

Rule 1 of good behavior in a laboratory (the kind where you give samples of this and that): when showing up, wait politely and in turn to be seen.

Rule 2: When the procedure you're being asked to prepare for makes you ill, notify the technician in charge of your tests.

Rule 3: When notification has occurred, please try to direct the vomit away from other clients waiting to be seen. This is not something they need to see graphically. If possible, avoid hitting the technician. He will thank you later. Especially if your appointment falls in the early morning hours.

Psst! Want to help the Goldfish Cracker Fund without inconvenience or cost to yourself? Visit the sponsored links down on the sidebar. Click a link and it will drop a few virtual pennies into the jar.

Today I'm knitting in a super bulky chenille yarn. It's 98 degrees outside my front door. Does this mean that I'm out of my ever-freaking mind? You bet it does. You better believe I've also got the air conditioner working.

The family is down for a nap and I'm trying to hydrate. It involves many many cups of herbal teas. Many cups of cold water. Many trips to the bathroom in which I envy my non-potty trained offspring. The knitting is helping keep my mind off the fact that I have to take another drink every two minutes. It's intended home is the lucky lady who was assigned to be my Summer Secret Santee (the one who gets the gift from me). I've shopped for her at the five&dime and now I'm making a fuzzy blue shawl to help give her a hug when the winter comes again.

Still. Knitting chenille in this heat? Must be nuts.

I've been signed up with payperpost for a bit over a month now. And so far, I love it. It pays when they promise, to paypal- which lets me spend the funds over on ebay or request a check. Which is fairly instant and completely under my control. I like that over most of my other survey sites; although the payment comes through just as promised it takes a minimum of a month to process, then a couple of weeks for a check, and they only start processing at a certain day of the month- if I miss that day it takes up to another full 6 weeks to get the money.

And so I like the payperpost.

I've made about eleven dollars so far. With another 6 in the wings. For a month of work and a few blog posts I figure it's easy money. The only thing I would change is the availability of the higher paying opportunities. But since it's easy money- who am I to complain? So far I'm buying stuff to support my new pregnancy. Little Bit is growing outwards faster than Tiff did. This is a good sign, but it makes me want to scurry around to start getting nickels and dimes away for the new Goldfish Fund.

blog marketing

Is it possible to forget rain? On the way home this morning a few drops of water splashed on my windshield and I looked around for what might have splashed me. My first thought was that it was an irrigation system. Turns out it was a few sprinkles, just a handful of drops. Enough to wash the dust from the hood of my car, nothing more. And then it was over.

I've lived in a non-rain environment for three years now. In that time I've seen snow maybe three times. Only on trips back east. I see rain when I used to see snow- in the winter. In San Diego the sky always looks like rain in the morning. The mist burns off by noon and then it's drop-dead gorgeous. Out here it's hot and dry, dusty. I saw rain when we moved in. I saw it again once more but then it was over for the year. I miss standing in the rain, I miss hearing the raindrops on the roof when I'm sleeping. I don't know how I'll tell my daughter what it is when it comes around again this winter. "See that, Tiff? It's rain. Water, coming down from the clouds." Maybe I'll take a page from Terry Pratchett's version of Australia. It's the Wet. Water comes down, washes the streets clean. It washes the skin clean without the smell of sulfer. It cools the air and lets the smell of new growth fill the air. Green follows after.

The Wet will come back in the winter. Soon enough.

What weekend would be complete without the following conversation?

"Honey, why are there 4 cop cars parked outside?"
"?" me, having been blissfully unaware of any law enforcement presence outside of the "Rosemary and Thyme" dvd.

So I had to open the blind at that point, despite raising the bedroom temps about 5 degrees in the HOT summer sun. And then I frequently checked in on the drama unfolding. As drama goes this was kinda disappointing. I didn't see anyone led away in cuffs, I didn't see the ghetto booty babe mincing down the street in her stiletto sandals. I saw the cars ease off, one by one, and a tow truck arrive to cart away a white SUV. And a uniform came to the door to ask if we had seen anyone driving it.

When I consider that this is the most excitement seen on this block since the kid came to my door one morning trying to bum cigarettes, I have to admit that we picked a good area to move into. Quiet neighbors. No excess of crime or hostility. Despite the part about not being able to understand more than one word in five that anybody next door says to me, I like it here. It's a good place to raise a toddler, a place in which I'm not afraid to bring home an infant.

Small Town America strikes again. Be afraid, people, lest I start wearing an apron and heels to start taking out the trash. I might lose my marbles one day and paint the fence white. And buy a minivan.

Coupon Chief is one of the neatest collections of online coupons that I've seen. And I've seen a lot of coupon sites. They collect hundreds of different retailers and provide the coupon codes available; what I find makes this site stand out over others is that they include the store's corporate office information right there alongside the rest. You have the customer service numbers, emails, phone/fax info. And a new feature that is available for some of the larger sites (like Target, Amazon) is an instructional video. You may think that some of that is overkill, but I thought that the little 90 second clip of how to access the site and use the coupon is really nice. Especially when Pregnant Mommy Brain kicks in and starts overpowering the little gray cells that allow me to function with the rest of humanity.

This post has been brought to you courtesy of:
couponchief.com

This morning the Boy and I went to this guy's house for a moving out toss and dump. He was down to the few things he didn't want to take; a pair of matched table lamps and an end table. All really good stuff.

All in all, that was pretty much the extent of today's excitement. Probably have more fun stuff tomorrow. But I've got a hot date waiting for me, and he's getting impatient...

Squirrels Without Borders

It's official. The Squirrels have united and formed socio-political groupings. I'm going to go stock up on nuts for a squirrel feeder so I can placate our new overlords.

And if you don't know I'm kidding, I apologize for inserting levity into my depressed ramblings.

Between lapfuls of Cute Toddler, and trying to rest, I've been pretty quiet lately. And yes, I've been struggling a bit with the depression as well. So far I'm coming up a winner. This is the important thing.

Among the other things of vital importance is that yesterday morning I got the very first glimpse of my new Little Bit. I heard the heart beating under my own. I felt the reality of the wiggle wiggle Thump THUMP that keeps me awake at night. Now it all makes me feel calm. The thought that soon I'll be back in a brutal round of doctor appts and checkups doesn't faze me at all. Not even the part where this set of doctors will be at a 45minute drive from the house, as opposed to a 10 or 15 minute drive. I've got a baby on the way and an adorable little girl already here. Life does not get much better than this.

Also on the happy front? I got my first payout for payperpost. The ad copy I wrote last month has been paid out to my paypal account. This will buy goldfish crackers and something pretty for the Toddler. And a taco.

The heatwave of this week has been nearly beyond belief. If we were back on the east coast with the humidity they receive, I'd be unable to breathe outside the house. Yesterday it reached 109 degrees outside. Thank God for central air. And for the low humidity of the desert that makes all of this bearable for me while I'm feeling sick and tired.

Every now and again I start feeling like the suburban housewife gets thin and the neurotic young woman I used to be gets yanked into the spotlight. Not a place I like to be, unless it's completely under my control. These would be the same issues that lead me to snap at my husband, shrill at my daughter, and spend a lot of time staring at an empty computer screen.

How do you fight it? It's easy when everything happens on schedule as planned with few unexpected deviations to your day. When everything becomes dependent on the smooth transition from one activity to the next. One variation, one slip leads to another, the entire days plans fly out the window, and the next thing you know you're caught in the snowball slide from hell.

I still don't know the answers. I spent years in therapy, months in psychiatric hospitals. I've ignored it and dealt with it. I've sat awake at nights wrestling with the same questions that hit me in broad daylight. I don't know which is better.

Look at myself in the mirror in the morning. Who is going to win today? The housewife or the other one? Or will it be an even earlier version? A little girl still so scared she can't come out of her hidey hole?

Does more therapy help or does more chemical interference? Drug the problem and watch it go away? I wish it were that easy.

I was sifting through the Net again and idly wondering exactly what Hotelreservations.com was all about. I've seen them here and there, on tv ads and internet ads and never really got into it since I don't tend to book hotels that much. There are times, though, when even the most devoted stay at home person gets curious to see just how much money it would take to do stuff. To book a room on the other side of the country for a week. How easy is it these days, to make all your reservations with one click and to just get up and go?

Pretty easy, apparantly.

To make my standard trip East to Albany NY, there are more options than I would have thought. For a "good" flight out of Fresno and a B&B in a good area would run this family about 2300. One click brings up a variety of car rentals that I could add in. One click brings up the local theme parks and museums. Hey, I could handle this. If I had the money, this site actually makes traveling pretty damn easy. Also found on the site? Sale prices. For some of the hotels they can knock off an extra percentage, depending on the day of the week, the time of day, the phases of the moon on jupiter- alright, maybe that last one was a bit over the top. But hey, how do I know? I haven't a clue how the sale prices work out. All I know is that if I ever have that kind of money for a vacation trip, this is the site I want to use. Everything is laid out, photos are good, the hotels and vacation properties are what I would expect. Also, and this is a big extra also in my book, the site makes planning a trip with a toddler and an infant look less threatening than a lot of other options.

Cheap Hotels

Few things are better first thing in the morning than a lapful of Cute Toddler. She snuggled down, her Elmo phone clutched in two little chubby fists; we watched the Closer from last night. At least Mommy watched the Closer. Cute Toddler pressed the buttons.

We are all sitting around this morning, attempting to get our work done in a reasonable manner and within some boundaries of a reasonable time. This is still possible. Although Gram will need to stop popping up from her stuff and let Tiffany play on her own. Tiff does not care, as long as there remain animal crackers to eat, Cake once a week, and her Teletubbies remain On Demand. Toddlers have such simple requirements.

(short break to cuddle toddler on lap again)

Again, with the lapful of Cute Toddler. So cuddly. So adorable. No doubt this a major reason why I'm approaching parenthood again with a certain smug satisfaction. Two cute bundles of love on my lap. Twice the love, twice the cuddles. Twice the tantrums in the middle of the night- heck, I can deal with that.

The solution to half my ills today can be found in drinking water until I feel I'm going to float away. Seriously, I've drunk so much water, and I have to pee every twenty minutes, and even though I can't manage to take more than 5 bites of anything at a time I think I'm starting to get a handle on this pregnancy.

Today, at least.

Tomorrow is a whole new ball game. New rules, different deck of cards. Same fabulous prizes.

the wrist stick stings. It itches. Scratching it would be a bad idea.

5 sticks in my left elbow, one in the right, one in the wrist- finally got a little bit of blood to decide to leave my body and go into the tube for the nice techs. And what they got? Not my best. A second stick downstream of a vein previously hit, that got *some* blood and a lot of spatter in the tube. The tech drained out the needle into a second tube so as not to waste the precious itty bit he could get.

Let's all pray it's enough. They only needed one tube. I'm not drinking the glucose again unless I really REALLY have to. Nasty.

My Boy is off in Sonoma this weekend, working at something or other at Nascar. This, despite the fact he's not a Nascar fan, or a sport fan, or even close. What he is a fan of is escaping the office. He also, despite my failure to understand, a fan of camping. So the chance to sleep in a tent on the ground really made him fight to be allowed to go on this duty. Yep. It's official Navy business. Whatever he's doing there.

This morning as I sent him on his way with twelve bottles of beer and an airbed I reflected on the whole "away" concept. I've been getting incredibly spoiled lately, having him home every night. Every night except one (sleep study) he's been laying next to me. And now I'm not entirely sure I'm sorry to see him go off again. Sure, I love him. Perhaps it's that I'm completely secure in that as only a wife to someone who travels frequently can be. I know that I can handle anything that comes up here. I know that he trusts me to do that. I know that I can trust him no matter what situation comes up, whether he be lonely or tempted or drunk. I know that this trust is shared by many women who never have to wave their husbands off for a week. I think we're really lucky.

To celebrate the Girls' Weekend now upon us, the Toddler has given up all pretense at napping. She's exhausted. She knows it. We know it. She refuses to sleep. Well, it will happen soon now I think. She'll fall over on her side, naked butt in the air, and be fast asleep until morning.

I am truly sorry for the lack of humor this week. I have been growing the Little Bit. He demands much Toilet Time with mommy every day, and I've been spending large portions of the afternoon and evening trying to keep food down.

I thought I was getting off too lightly when I finished giving a yellow specimen at the lab and walked away. A few hours later my cell phone rang. "This is HM1. Um. Did you forget to get the rest of your bloodwork drawn?"

Damn. They found me. So back to the lab I went. 6 sticks of blood and a bottle of gatorade later I'm free again. Picked up the Boy, the family all went out to dinner, and fast forward to this morning.

So I know I have crappy veins. This has always made labwork "Interesting". In the multiple attempts to find a) a vein that works b) a vein that they can find and access and c) a vein that will not blow out the tube halfway through the procedure. I am very happy with HM1. Ecstatically happy. Not only did he find a winner first try, but there's not a mark on my arm this morning. Very cool. Cool enough to offset the crazy little blond-haired terror who's bringing me paper after paper after book after stuffed animal this morning. And how does one read a stuffed animal? Carefully. And with lots and lots of giggles.

pregnant mommy-brain strikes again.

I'm hungry, it's afternoon, and I figured I'll just make a double batch of Annie's Mac and Cheese. Good, right? Well, I made a double batch, and I'm looking down at it and it looks kinda puny for two whole boxes. But I clearly remembered using both cheese packets to make the sauce, and then I went to pick up the boxes as part of Tidying Up.

I only made one box of pasta.

So it's back to boiling and another 8 minutes before I can peacefully enjoy the creamy cheesy goodness. Wow. I had no idea that the mommy-brain would stealth-strike this early on.

I guess I really am going to be buying the Super-sized desk calendar for the next year.

I need to be putting the clean dishes away and the dirty ones in the dishwasher. Am I? No.

I need to be prepping dinner so that I can spend the rest of the afternoon comfortably with feet up, drinking water, and not losing my lunch. Am I? No.

Is my daughter still shrieking happily in her crib despite it being Well Past her naptime? Yes. Do those shrieks richochet through my aching head? Yes. Do I feel like I'm playing twenty questions with myself rather than posting anything meaningful today? You betcha.

Seriously though, our nap schedules are thrown off by the presence (welcome) of Grammy. She is a wonderful present for all of us. She is bright, and happy to be here, and a New Toy for Tiff to crawl over and giggle with. She gives me oodles of much-needed hugs on a daily basis. This makes it okay that naps are being thrown by the wayside.

Father's Day will have a present this year. It will even have a Father at home to enjoy it. This is a happy thing; it makes up for so much else that has seemed to go wrong this spring. And look, wow, there's going to be twice as much fun this time next year.

Dinner tonight: Shepherd's Pie. Without the alphabet soup.

"I have no pity for you"
"How can you stand there and say that?"
"Oh, I have sympathy for you. I don't love that you're sick and tired and all. But you were a willing participant in the events that led us to this point. Therefore you get no pity."

..."You are so cute when you're being overly-logical."...

and now I am 30. Tired, sleepy, feeling very much like crawling back into bed and sleeping for a few more hours. And I'm 30...

Parents have one thing that both makes them miserable and happier than they could ever have dreamed. Children. We put so much of ourselves into our children whether or not we intend to. Hopes, dreams. It's one of the harder truths, when someone puts so much of themselves into a project we can't stand to think of that effort as wasted. Maybe this is why "It's such a waste" is one of the more common phrases used in connection with untimely deaths.

The amount of effort any parent puts into their children is enormous. It is without price. It is something so innate to most of society that it's hard to conceive of anyone who would not think so. To use a semi-recent example, the amish schoolhouse shootings come immediately to mind. Any school shooting is horrific. This particular event was made more so because of the nature of the community and how they are perceived. Whether or not a given segment of society agrees with the choices the Amish make, we believe that they should be left alone to live their lives. Whether or not we personally believe in nonviolence, deep down most people believe that the Amish should be allowed to live out their believes. In a way it's similiar to the guiding principles of many other faiths: do as you would have done unto you...

How can we say that the effort we put into raising our children is not wasted? When we think of the sleepless nights, the vital and mostly disgusting personal care acts we must perform for our children- I can think of several Poop-a-looza diapers that fall into this category... we'd like to think that it is for something. If our children grow, if they are happy. I think happiness is the one thing that no one can ultimately control. You can take steps to make yourself happy, you can think for hours to find out what happiness means to you, and if you don't have it in your life all that work is wasted.

I thought I was happy before. Now I'm going to be a mother of two and a cherished wife. It terrifies me to think about my children, growing up, never being truly happy in their adult choices. It comforts me to know that my mother knows deep down that I am happy, growing happier every day.

the walls in the master bathroom shower are this odd sort of mottled brown. The cracks in it were grouted when we moved in; this makes the mottled brown plastic look even odder. And yet... when the light hits it in the right place in the afternoon, and I'm using the cinnamon bun scented body wash, and my glasses are off so that all I can see is fuzz- it's as though I'm encased in a giant cinnamon bun. Smeared with icing. And now I'm hungry for a cinnabon.

Damn these hormones! Damn this healthy eating kick I'm trying to instill!

Payperpost. I've now written two little blurbs for them. And for this, they will pay into the Goldfish Cracker Fund. With these two blurbs I will add to my household budget which now will be stretching to cover a second baby, toddler, eventually with luck help pay for some of their education.

Money, money, money. Everybody needs it, nobody thinks they have enough. With the economy of gas prices and other expenses it's hard to know where we can cut anything further out. I'm doing everything I can think of. Having another baby may not be up there on the list of things I've done to cut the expenses, but in the long run I don't view children as an expense. They are people, they are gifts, and yes it's a challenge to make things stretch to care for everyone but ultimately it's a worthy cause.

No more than two, though, because my body won't permit it and my husband is not willing to lose me over children. He says it's because he refuses to allow me to make him a single father. I suspect it's much more that I scared him to death the last time I had a baby and he can't quite bring himself to say that to me.

Teachers, special help, therapists, my life as a parent is starting to revolve around them all. This morning I found myself wondering when Tiff will be ready for preschool. Isn't that nuts? Another deeper part of me wants to start saying "enough already!" What happened to childhood? What happened to my baby's childhood, is she screwed now if she doesn't get special ed or can I mainstream her?

It's not like there aren't remedial services available. I saw an ad for the Score centers this morning. It combines fun with education. Sounds easy, right? Not always. Every person alive learns differently. The real challenge of teaching is to figure out how a child learns and teach to their strengths and learning styles. Repetition isn't enough, education can't be a one-size fits all experience.

This is the ad I saw, and I'm passing it on. Summer Program



This post brought to you by payperpost.com. Just because of that, don't discount the sentiments behind the post.

when I was a kid I loved looking up at the stars. I knew one constellation well enough to pick it out, and to this day I keep looking for it when I go out at night. Moving out to the country has gotten rid of most of the ambient light making it next to impossible to see stars.

Another thing I loved was looking through books of planets and stars. The pictures were always so colorful. Different from the normal daytime world around me. It was fun to think that these things were out there, and if only my eyes were better I could figure out how to use a telescope and see them too.

I just found out about Meade MySky. It's doing for stargazing what the digital camera did for the picture-taking-challenged. (Don't know about you, but I find it hard to take a good picture without having my thumb in the frame, or cutting off what I'm trying to take the picture of...) Digital cameras fix that. So the Meade MySky has the cool LCD screen to see the picture on, GPS to make it easier to identify what you're seeing, and they include a sky map.

It's a step further than the hand-held telescope. It's easier to use, the results are more amazing. I find it... worthy of a mention.
meade telescopes

Little Bit is going to be so happy here. Assuming that he/she can avoid the reflux and colic issues of his/her big sister. The Boy and I were talking things over, and starting to think up all the fun and cool things we'll be needing. And not so fun and cool- like furniture, a new crib, we have to get off our butts and finish cleaning out the family room (and save up for some furniture so we can use it) and such.

This is definately the time to keep up my survey sites, my blogging (the adbrite really does add up pretty quick when people visit the ads), and everything else.

Monday night, first Monday in June. The temp made it into the mid to high nineties today. Thank heavens for central air!

One line for one child, two lines for two children... the double pink line tells me that in 9 months or so we will be buying newborn diapers again. Wow, what a good time to be increasing my extra income, right?

Let's all take a moment and hope that this pregnancy goes a hell of a lot better than the last one.

ads on blogs

So I've just joined payperpost; it's a site that will pay you to write a review of a site or product and post that on your blog- then you get paid for it. Sounds pretty simple, doesn't it? I think so.

I can add this to my list of ways to make some extra money on the Net. It won't be thousands a month (though it would be nice) but it'll help out. Every little bit helps. More for the goldfish cracker fund! I found it through a series of unrelated clicks and searches that had nothing to do with looking for them and everything to do with just following my nose and browsing around this morning. It's remarkable what you can find while browsing the Net. As long as you make sure the anti-virus and firewall are properly configured!

Every now and then I start feeling pinched because we've got to watch our pennies. I feel broke, poor, like a bad wife because I can't make gold from straw. You know what? I'm coming to realize that those feelings are pretty damn consistant the world over. It's what you do with them that counts. Are you going to sit around bitching? Are you going to go out there and try to do something? Circumstances right now are against me going outside of the house to work. I wouldn't feel right doing an at-home freelance job; but this is something I can do. I can blog. I can get some cash back from Adbrite for my time. I can sell the crafts that I make in my free time and insomnia for some more cash. I can take online surveys and after a while the little stuff really does add up.

PayPerPost is the newest, the latest and greatest that I'm going to try out and believe in. Free to join; you're not going to lose anything at all. Who knows? I might end up with those thousands at the end of a year. I'm not greedy, I don't need thousands a week that's unsustainable. I just want a hundred or so a month.
ads on blogs

Mystery solved.

Tiff got inside the case of an old, non-plugged in tv, and has been slowly dismantling the innards for a while now. The Boy caught her at it last night, a shard of glass making it's way into her mouth. *shudder*

Now that it has been removed from her reach, may I indulge in a little post-crisis horror? I'm trying to not overreact, but how can I not overreact to my baby girl playing with bits of glass near her mouth unnoticed for all this time?

Bad mama. Bad, bad, mama. No biscuit for me.

Today's one of my workout days and I'm supposed to be working up a sweat right now. Am I? Not exactly. Unless you count the sweat worked up by chasing a toddler, trying to get her to take a nap, and recovering from chasing the toddler and trying to get her to take a nap.

The recovery portion of today is going fairly well. I'm sitting here catching up on my 'Net, folding laundry, working up the motivation to make dinner (yeah, I make dinner around lunchtime so that it's just needing to be reheated at dinner time- I'm wierd.) I'm also drinking cherry koolaid. My juice of choice.

Bizarre things going on in our universe today include wondering where the heck all this glass is coming from. For the past couple of weeks I turn up another little fragment of broken glass about once a week or so. I don't know how it got there, I don't know when it got there. As far as I can tell it's coming in on somebody's shoes. Today I found it by stepping on one. I think Tiff cut herself on it a little bit, but since she refuses to tell me with her words what she did to hurt herself -tiny cut on the knee- I can't know. For all I know it came from one of the several tantrums she had all morning... throwing herself down on the floor, rolling around screaming, and whacking her little body against furniture.

Much more of this and I'm going to consider outfitting her room with padded walls for her own protection and sending her in there to have tantrums.

I'm not sure that there's much sweeter than waking up to find that your husband has started the laundry, on his own, and that he has gotten up and fed the toddler. Except, maybe, breakfast in bed. But still, we're doing real good.

Happy Memorial Day to all. Have a cookout, laugh with your family, never forget why we have the freedoms to enjoy these things.

The man who informed me back in February that we were not going to put up a clothesline, or indeed any sort of outdoors clothes-drying apparatus... has just come into the room and said

"Dear, we need to get some sort of construct for outside, that we can put items on that are still "kinda damp" to finish drying. Out there in the sun, and the hot dry air, and that way they'll dry and smell extra fresh."

"Dear, you told me that we would not ever be doing that."

"No, that was a clothesline. This is a construct. It's totally different."

Me, eyes rolling, "yes, dear. Whatever..."

"Tiffany! Mommy's panties are not jewelry. Stop putting them around your neck!"

Innocent puppy eyes, then whine, whine, whine when I took them away. Until she reached into the laundry basket and pulled out another pair and put those on instead. I didn't know I had that much underwear.

Tiff is coming to another growth or developmental spurt. She has been clinging like crazy to both of us all day and most of yesterday. This is not because she's not sleeping (she has, better than ever I'm happy to say). She's eating well too. I think. It's hard to tell because we graze more than eat set meals around here. Dinner in the evening is a set meal; everything else is eaten whereever and whenever someone gets hungry. I've been eating when she eats out of necessity. Hey, it generally looks good, it tastes good, and we eat it with our fingers on the couch. Is there anything better than that? Plus Tiff gets a kick out of feeding her mommy with chubby little fingers that get Schlurped afterwards. She likes Schlurping. It is possible that she now thinks of mommy as her own puppydog.

Ever since the sleep study she's been proudly saying "ship. ship. ship." and pointing to her daddy. I, having been on another Terry Pratchett binge this week, have been confusing her young mind by baa-ing everytime she says ship. "Does the ship make a sound? It goes Baaaaaa!" Blame the Nac Mac Feegles for that one. I claim innocence. It's not my fault that I have fallen in love with their simple ways... it's more that they are so uncomplicated. Like the Lost Boys, only with more violence and booze. We already know that Waily Waily Waily has become my Mom-Approved expression of why we don't whine around the house. Tiff whines? Waily. The Boy whines? Waily waily. I feel sorry for myself on the soapbox? Waily waily waily where's my motrin?

All in all it's going about normal around here.

Last night's sleep study proved two things to me. One, that I am indeed becoming "that wife" who finds it hard if not impossible to sleep without her husband. Two, that Tiff has begun to think things out.

We came home from dropping the Boy off at the sleep center. When I lifted Tiff out of the car she cuddled into my arms and we watched the moon and looked at some stars before going into the house. When she asked "Daddy?" I knew she was asking where he was. She's used to going in the car and dropping him off, but not at bedtime. I told her that he had to sleep at the clinic tonight and she looked at me and said "ship." I'm impressed that she made this connection. While it was not the ship that he was sleeping at, it showed that she remembered that sometimes Daddy sleeps elsewhere and we go night-nights. And then in the morning when we wake up Daddy comes back. In the meantime, we are on our Best Behavior for Mommy.

I'm so proud of her. This pride overcomes the dismay at not being able to sleep without him last night. I've obviously become spoiled by having him home every night for the past couple of months.

I love staying home with my family; even on the days when it seems as though every breath taken in the house is designed to make me feel either incompetant as a mother or useless as a wife.

No, really, they're both doing fine. I know that my problem is all MY problem and not theirs. Just as I know that according to my calendar this is one of those days when my judgment is not to be trusted. In the freezer there is ice cream. It will make me feel better. And the chocolate bar? That will make me feel better as well.

What's not helping is that my feet don't know whether they're hot or cold. I spent two days trying to think up a post for today. My computer is having periodic mood swings. And my fingers don't want to knit on my projects. I'm beginning to develop a case of starteritis- I want to pull out something new, break the seal on the packet, and stitch to about 3/4 of the way through the project. That's when I usually lose all interest in finishing it.

I'm waiting for something to change. I'm waiting for my brain to wake up- I've spent half of today in hibernation. I just want to lay in bed and doze. Is this pms or is this something else? Somebody give me a quick kick in the ass.

What a week it has been. Last night I finally cornered Her Ladyship after dinner, and trimmed her bangs for the first time ever. Now she looks like a toddler girl, and not like a shaggy haystack. I'm glad I wasn't trying anything more daring than a trim of the bangs; even that little bit was hard to get even and to tell the truth I don't know that I managed to get them straight. Either way, I'm not caring that much right now.

Mount Washmore is starting to become unstable. This is because I haven't done laundry for FIVE WHOLE DAYS. Have I been sick? Only with spring flu. Only with the need to do other important things that can't be delayed; things for which laundry can wait. I got my melaleuca box last night and the new candle is starting to smell really good. Instead of the normal bakery scents, I opted to get the cherry blossom. It's been a while since I got a candle that smelled like flowers.

This morning a sweet older lady living next door came over and asked me a question. I don't speak spanish. I tried to convey it to her, but she didn't understand that I didn't speak spanish. It was hard to get annoyed about her; she really was a sweet woman. Apparantly their trash can is full to overflowing and there was still some trash to go out, and since we had room in ours... today being trash day and all. In any case, it worked out without annoyance, hard feelings, or all; I still have to ask myself when it became so that I must speak spanish in order to function in my community? When did it become a crime not to speak English exclusively? I'll try to work with those who try to work with me, but when someone comes up and starts getting all fed up and annoyed that I don't automatically understand and speak spanish? Forget it. Attitude is everything. As in most situations.

The sun is so hot today and the grass in the front lawn is so brown and crunchy that I've pulled out the popup pool and filled it partway. I'm in need of water, all sparkly, and we're going to have dinner by/in the pool tonight. My sneaky thought? Wear out the Toddler through fun and games. She's spent almost all of today in her crib; the first two hours trying hard to convince me that she really wasn't tired (yawn, stretch, giggle, burrow head sleepily in my shoulder when I tried to play with her) and then the past four hours napping. I think she woke up once to roll over.

My take on this? She's tired despite what she tries to tell me. Yesterday we went to costco and ran around town doing errands, and there was no nap. She refused to go to bed on time; although she did play quietly for about three hours before finally falling asleep. Those of you who disagree with my habit of crib-restriction until sleeping occurs? Bite me. I've tried letting her up and around, it leads to nonstop screaming and very hysterical toddler. The crib-restriction method is what works for us with this child. Next time around we will do what works for that child. And if Tiff can prove to me with active playing and trying to interact with me while on restriction that she really doesn't need the nap? I do let her up. Like most parenting tricks this is all about listening to what your kid needs instead of what they want.

It's going to be so much harder in another couple of months. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe she'll grow into a sweetly biddable happy girl, and not be pigheadedly stubborn anymore. And maybe pigs will fly.

Today's the day to panfry an apple. With sugar.

It's something I saw on the food network at one point last week. Why? Because that's one of my tv addictions. There are days when I'm glued to HGTV and FOOD. Don't know why. I have spent the last two years pinned to A&E daytime, which focused mostly on crime reality and crime drama. Now I'm getting all domesticated in my viewing habits. Perhaps it's a phase, perhaps it has something to do with Tiffany and her growing interest in what's happening on the screen. I still turn it off whenever she starts getting glued to it, but even in the background it's not good to expose her to so much violence. Let's expose her to tasteful decorating, pretty flowers, and good food. An unexpected blessing of her internal focus is that I can do/say fairly anything around her and she's not going to take notice of it. We're trying to work out way out of that, and slowly I feel progress is being made. She knows I exist now; more than a pair of hands and a voice in the middle of the night soothing her back to sleep.

Makes my heart melt when she recognizes me. She's been able to recognize me now for a year or so, and it still makes me melt. I guess that's because she firmly ignored me for months; and because to this day she still pretends I don't exist from time to time.

Tiffany loves apples. It was one of her first words used in communicating with us. APPLE. She comes to the baby gate while I'm working in the kitchen and demands APPLE. This is where I found a lot of use in getting the big bag of dried apple wedges. Tuck them in the fridge and she's got an instant apple slice. Today we have no more apple wedges and so I'm going to cut and core an apple and cook it on the stovetop instead of baking it. Do I want to heat up the whole oven and house for one apple? No. It's quicker on the stove. Let's just hope it works out, m'kay?

This morning in church I felt odd to be sitting there with nothing in my hands. Usually I bring my knitting and that's cool; I can tuck it into my lap and since I don't have to look down at it much it's very discreet and almost nobody knows I have it. Not this morning. I felt almost naked. Not a good thing, in church. Like that nightmare where you show up for school and suddenly realize you're in your underwear. Once I went to school and found that I had put on my clothes over my PJs. Not a dream. Did I take that opportunity to start getting up on time? I did not. I'm SO not a morning person. I ended up birthing one, though, which is freaky. I'm just starting to get my eyes open and she wants me to function perfectly. Good thing she's two.

Even better that she's not comparing me to other moms yet. While overall I'm sure I would win in her eyes, I'm not sure about the smaller parts of that contest. Insecure, much?

An article in today's Washington Post claims that the average gas price is $3.05 a gallon. Really? Where can I find this averagely priced gas? The stations around here have just hit the 3.40 mark and are still climbing. The article goes on to say that this is creating hardship for a number of families. Really? You think? While many people have not changed their habits, it's worth looking into how these habits are able to be changed.

This family has not changed it's habits. The Boy has to go to work. He's not allowed to take a day off here or there to help save gas. We live 22 miles from his place of employment. While he's attempting to get his license this is hampered by the part where we can't currently afford the gas to have him drive out in town every night to practice so that he will pass the test. We need him to drive but can't afford the means by which he can get the license to drive. Right now it's at least one tank of gas per week at $37+ a fillup.

We're spoiled in america. We are so spread out and so used to just hopping in the car for road trips here and there- we forget that it's a struggle for others until this struggle starts parking outside our front doors. I didn't care about this three years ago. I didn't care about any of this. It didn't really touch me.

I'm ready for something to change. Or I could just win the lottery. Anybody got a winning ticket they aren't using?

Is there anything sweeter than being able to push off an entire day's quota of housework and sit back, rocking your little girl in your arms, and watching her fall asleep? Or creeping into the nursery to replace a blanket that she's kicked off? Offhand I can't think of anything.

Pita. It's not just a pain in the ass around here. I may have finally figured out the optimal baking procedure for pita bread in this oven. Which is, as all bakers know, different for every oven, baker, set of ingredients... inspiring me to mutter evil thoughts under my breath every time I set out to make a batch.

No more. My secret? Butter. I have designated one butter stick as the greasing stick. I keep it in a baggie in the fridge and pull it out only for greasing the hot baking sheet between rounds. It sizzles. It gives off a nice buttery aroma. It makes the dough no longer stick to the sheet. I gave up on trying to mist the sheet with water- I couldn't get the mist right and the water didn't sizzle. Who am I to argue with results? Especially such yummy ones.

Dinner tonight is yet to be decided. Want to cast your vote? The choices tonight are:

steak and wild rice
beefy taco pockets
broiled pork chops and saffron rice with buttered carrots

Have you heard the one about the fish, the feed, and the poisoning of pet food? Are you sick of hearing these sorts of things and wondering whether or not the next thing you buy for home use and consumption is going to poison your family? I am. I'm tired of having to wonder; pesticides are bad, germicides are bad, organics are supposed to be some of the safest foods around but who knows how safe they really are? Are they grown under sterile conditions? These days no one can vouch for the soil, air, or water. All three are likely to be just as poisoned as the stuff we're trying to get away from. The substance we're most recently hearing about is melamine, used as a component of plastics and pesticides.

Personally I've got nothing against either industry. Do I feel that we waste too much plastic in the course of daily life? Yup. Do I agree with the commercials that plastics are necessary in some industries and that they've saved literally millions of lives and that the use of plastics and technology makes society as a whole better? Yup. Where's the balance? Where can we say that we want some from column A and some from B, and skip the side order of pollution? We can't; they go hand in hand. There should be something else in the middle, something that allows us to maximize the benefits while minimizing the harm. I guess that it's not good business practice just yet... The time and cost in reworking all those factories and procedures would cut down on the availability of all those neat little widgets that we just gotta have the second we want them.

I heard that the hard plastic packaging that's been the bane of so many people is on the way out; that by next Christmas we'll once again be able to open them without a jaws-of-life. I'm looking forward to that. I'd also like to look forward to a time when we'll be able to send a bottle of shampoo cross-country without jumping through special postal regulations. Did you know that it is an 11,000 fine per instance of shipping liquids/hazards without going through those hoops? If they caught you. That is, it was 11,000 a few years ago when I last was current with US Postage rates. I was going through my issue of Leadership in Action (melaleuca) this week and one of the featured profiles really caught my eye. The lady joined for the products- she liked them, they worked for her and her family- and since she didn't want any of the old stuff around anymore she boxed it all up and set it out for the trashman. We're talking windex, lysol, bath/body stuff; nothing seriously out of normal range. And come trash pickup time, the box was refused because everything in it was classified as a hazardous substance. OSHA regulations require that cleaners in most companies have to use protective gear against what's in these bottles, and housewives/househusbands are using it every day without a second thought.

I'm tired of wondering where the next poisoning news is going to come from. Everything's bad for us; growth hormones in the meat, pesticides in the produce, salmonella in the dairy, nasty stuff in partially thawed and refrozen foods of any sort. Mercury in our fish, poison in the water, greenhouse warming from commuting to our jobs which may or may not be fulfilling- I'll keep a wide open mind on that one because for as many jobs suck the life out of you there are those that are equally soul-enriching.

We've become so dependant on all of this stuff. I can't help ranting about it sometimes. People have forgotten how to fix up what they have to make it last longer, how to stretch things. Lose a button or rip a sleeve? No need to mend it, no need to at the minimum tear it up for cleaning rags. Just toss it. Buy a new shirt and a bundle of brand new rags at Stuffmart for a low, low price. Then go and bitch about how the cost of everything just builds up, and why does the city need to find a new landfill, and why don't the trashtrucks allow unlimited garbage every pickup day anymore?

It's official. Caffeine my body no function well without. Example the first: after nearly a week of no caffeine, I came home yesterday and started screaming at my family for no discernable reason. This was bad. Then I put Tiff to bed, sat on the couch, and cried quietly on the Boy for the next two hours. Then we all went to sleep and stayed there for 12 hours.

Today I went out and bought more caffeine tablets. My headache is finally gone. My body is ...slowly... returning to normalcy, or what passes for that. I'm getting some of the straightening up and clearing surfaces done. I even unpacked my faux tiffany lamp and set it up in the living room! Look, more lighting! I can do my needlework out there again! Even though it stays broad daylight out lots longer than it did last week, and the outside temp is starting to push the mid-nineties, and I'm so glad that this sentence is starting to end because it's become a runaway thing with a mind of it's own.

And while I've been cleaning out, here's a knickknack that I've been thinking about getting rid of for a while. It's too good to throw out, it has no purpose here, and maybe somebody out there wants it. The Ebay listing can be found here.

Swiss Steak is on the menu tonight. I was looking through all my cookbooks last night, trawling for inspiration, and I happened across a nifty version of it in the Fix It and Forget It Lightly book. Even better, I had everything on hand to make it. I was able to throw it in there quickly, with a minimum of fuss, and now there's nothing more to deal with.

This is good because I have to clean again today. It feels like all I do is tread water in that department. Everything I do today I'll be doing again tomorrow, the next day, the day after that, to infinity. And still it never really feels fully clean. To combat this? I've come to the conclusion that flat surfaces are the bane of our existance.

My family loves flat surfaces. They start out clean, flat, full of promise. Within a few hours they begin to attract clutter. And the clutter breeds. I've got a few civilizations lost under the stuff on the counter beside the stove. Whenever we make an effort to clean up it always feels as though we're conducting an excavation. Carefully go in, liberate unknown artifacts, identify, and then figure out whether all this could have been easily avoided by simply taking a leaf blower to it all and dumping it straight into the trash.

Pack Rats? Not really... yes. We are pack rats. We hate throwing stuff out until we have to; we acknowledge the worthlessness of the stuff. We are powerless over it. We have to nearly throw a revival meeting to get ourselves psyched up enough to get nasty with our own habits. Isn't knowing the problem one step closer to kicking the habit?

Saturday, folks! Get out and enjoy it! What are you doing sitting here reading this today? Oh, wait, that's right... mustn't discourage my readers. Okay, you can sit and read as long as the weather or other things prevent you from enjoying it.

I've got a busy afternoon and evening lined up; my little girl wants to dance. How did I ever get along without her?

It occurred to me while driving this morning that while Bill Engvall says he's just about 15degrees off "cool", I could call myself about 15 degrees off "sane". Most of the time this is in the good, fun, and kooky way. I'll admit my sense of humor is warped. My observations and the way I like to stick out those little one-liner quips with the sole purpose of making the listener choke on their beverage- that's all fun and wonderful. Great. Then there are the lower moments.

I've been trying very hard to keep my emotional wackiness in the kooky but fun range and away from the kooky but this woman needs to be locked up range. With fairly good success. There's no way to explain why I've been overly hormonal this week. PMSing again? Dare I hope? Didn't I just do this? All I know is that I'm still getting all choked up at odd moments. I'm still feeling from time to time as though my body is going to bump into something and break into a million tiny pieces. It won't be loud, it won't be messy. I'll probably just sit down and cry whereever it happens, with no idea why I'm crying or how I got there. One good thing about my brand of nuts- it's rarely of a degree to end up on the news. I never turn on the people I love, I just implode fairly quietly. This is the sort of thing the Boy lives in "concern" for. He's not afraid. Never afraid, just like he never worries. He just gets concerned.

Faugh. Enough of this sort of talk. Let's talk about something more exciting and fun. Like pizza. Tonight I'm making my french bread pizza. I am particularly fond of french bread pizza. Look for the recipe over on the recipe/thrift/whathaveyou blog (located just below dooce on my sidebar) But don't look for about five minutes because I need to go find the toddler from whereever she's gotten into. It's been way too quiet for about 3 minutes now.

This morning I learned that I live just about smack-dab in the center of california. Wow. That is, like, totally amazing. And yes, valley-speak does rot the brain. Fortunately for us we live around so many of those happy california cows. I've yet to hear them talking and having one of those commercial moments.

I need to drink more water again. We got so far away from drinking enough liquids when we moved up here. I haven't hit total dehydration yet, which is good, but I fear that Tiff might start getting that way soon. The Boy is fighting it every day in his office; his department recently lost their AC and I don't know when, if ever, it's getting fixed.

The heat outside is nice and dry this week. I luuuve it. Really. While the temp is the same as it is where I grew up, the humidity is about a third of that. A nice, even, dry heat. I still feel like my skin is baking when I leave the house, but at least I can breathe. Oxygen, my friends, is a good thing.

Let's whore the blog! Won't it be fun? Let's all take a moment to give in to the regularly scheduled "click-a-link" plea. Momma needs to replenish the goldfish cracker fund. She most definately needs to get some spare change back in her wallet and reclaim the coins that so many people are just throwing away these days.

Oh, we can pay rent this month, this pay period, if we don't eat. We can do it all, if we don't go anywhere or do anything. But me? I'd kinda like to eat, get the Boy to work, and not have to face yet another black hole of an overdraft.

Seriously, though. click-a-link. It doesn't take long, it won't cost any more of your time than it took to read one post to this site, and it will really help us out.