I'm completely dysfunctional without a routine

I am a creature of routine and habit.  It's the Taurus in me.  Routines and regular rituals are comforting to me.  If I have my routines down for everyday things, it frees me up to be more creative and add more activity to my life because the basics are already sorted.  It's also incredibly comforting to know that when I wake up at 5:45, I have most of my activities sorted out and I don't need to spend a lot of time thinking about them.

The past few weeks my routine has gone to shit, and I'm really suffering from it.

Jonathan has been working on tearing down the home office (which we need to do because it violates a setback law).  I've been working part time in the mornings so he can tear down the building in the afternoon.  I haven't had much of a break for me-time because I know that I can't tear down a building, but what I can do is give J time to work, so I've been watching Hannah so he can work every extra second possible.

So I'm way behind on work.  No fun.  The upshot is that the deadline to have the building down is this Monday, so I know this will all come to an end then either way.

Thursday was Hannah's birthday, and we had fun for much of the day, but she also seemed kind of "off" - not eating right, not going to the bathroom, generally fussy...when I finally took her temperature, it was over 101, so I took her to the ER and spent the whole night there while they ran tests, waited to see if her fever would break (started at 102.9 taken rectally - which was really awful - in the hospital) and to see if she would eat and not get dehydrated.  The ER is pretty much an exercise in hell.

They got her in to get vitals and see a nurse practitioner really quickly, but then when they decided she needed to be seen by a doctor, and we had to wait for a bed to open up, the fun began.  We were told to go back out and wait for a bed at about 8pm.  We finally got called back at 1am.  During that five hours (which was way past her bedtime, of course) I walked her in giant circles in the parking lot, drank a ton of diet coke, played with her toys with her, carried her back and forth, practiced walking with her, and then, as the night went on, tried in vain to avoid the crazy people.  There was the homeless guy, Darren (named after the Bewitched character) who arrived at the ER with a broken rib, and also had seizures, but he was still waiting after 7 hours.  Then there was a lady, Sylvia, who wanted to sell me solar panels, and followed me around on our parking lot Circle Walk to extol the virtues and ease of solar panels.

I kept going up every hour and asking for the status, wondering whether I could go home without seeing a doctor, or if I should just wait it out.  They gave her Motrin, she seemed to be not so hot, and so a big part of me really wanted to just go home and make an appointment with her pediatrician.

Eventually we went back, though, and they ran a battery of tests including needing to get a urine sample (inserting a catheter), throat cultures, and lots of other fun stuff.  She was hooked up to wires, which meant that she couldn't move around the way she wanted, and she also just wanted to eat the wires, so I had to try to keep that from happening.  For some of the tests they swaddled her so she wouldn't flail around so much.  Also not a good time.

Finally at about 3:45 she fell asleep on my chest sitting in the chair.  She dozed like that until around 9 when we got released, though of course she woke up every hour when they took her temp with the stick up the butt.

We had decided that J would stay home and rest, and I would go alone so that one of us was rested.  So when I got home, I could just crash out and sleep all day.  During some parts of the night (the Circle Walk of Agony) I really missed him and could have used just 10 minutes to sit in the car in silence without a screaming baby.  But I really appreciated being able to crash at home, so that worked out.  When we finally got home (after a Jack in the Box breakfast) Hannah slept all day (and, blessedly, all night) and I slept for 2 hours, and then also all night.

So Friday was pretty much a waste.  And this morning I slept in until she got up at 7:15, so I lost my morning quiet time.  And we missed doing our 10K this morning.

Really, I'm just a wreck without my routine - I haven't been meditating, I haven't been doing Morning Pages, I haven't been writing... but I guess that's life, and hopefully I'll start to get some semblance of it back this coming week.

It never ceases to amaze me just how much I fall apart when I lose my routine.  I never thought I was a creature of habit or routine, but apparently I am.

Happy Hannah Week

I've been engaged in a game of Last Year at This Time because August 6 was when I went to my 38 week appointment and Hannah failed the nonstress test and the doctor decided to induce and the next day we had a Hannah Bear.  So all day we've been looking back at pictures and thinking about what was going on last year at this time.

I hadn't been thinking that it would matter whether I was here for Hannah's birthday or not - originally I had plans to maybe even be away from her on her birthday if I had gone to Sweden to my friend's wedding.  I mean, she's a year old.  It's not like she knows.  Right?  And it's just a day.  Days are days.

But now that it's here, I think I'd be really upset if I wasn't with her on her birthday.  It's not even so much for her, but for me, remembering what it took to get her, honoring the journey we took together, and looking back on it all.  Tomorrow and this weekend will be a time to celebrate the little miraculous (thanks to the miracles of modern fertility drugs) bundle of energy and life that she is.  But like all great feasts and celebrations, there is a time of quiet meditation beforehand, and so that's what we're doing now.  In the time I'd normally be blogging, we looked at pictures from her first few months of life.  Our goofy girl.

Today I gave her a shape sorter from Ikea.  It is a house with the shapes opened in the roof.  You put the little shapes in the holes, the shapes go in the house, and you've got a working system.  Except I showed Hannah how to do it, and then gave the toy to her, and the first thing she did was just lift off the roof, put it on her head, and put all the little shapes directly inside the house without putting them through the roof at all.  My kid is nothing if not efficient.  Then she looked at me like I was supposed to be the smart one, and she was extremely disappointed in me for not having thought of this option before.

Good point, Hannah.  I like that you don't play by the same rules as everyone else.
 

Deja Vu All Over Again (and baby news)

Things have been absolutely crazy here in HeatherWorld.  What with J tearing down the building (he has 6 more days), me trying to watch Hannah so he can have time to work while trying to keep up with my own job...there hasn't been much time to spare here.  Plus, on Saturday we had a table at a local flea market and got rid of oodles of stuff.  We're starting to think ahead to the move to PA, and are getting even more ruthless than we were before we had Hannah.  This was the first layer of skin off the onion.  Everything that didn't sell (except for the 'spensive electronics - like my Asus tablet - which I can sell on ebay) went to the thrift shop on the way home, and we got rid of about 8 boxes of junk.  That's 8 less boxes that we'll have to move.  And 8 less boxes in Hannah's closet so I now have space to think about the next layer of ruthlessness.

The reason it's been deja vu is because over the weekend the building was at about the same level that it was last summer before Hannah arrived, and looking at it brings back all the memories of pre-Hannah life; before I was bipolar, before I spent 5 months pumping, before I was so tired, etc etc.  The night before I was emergency-induced, I was sitting in there with the floors unfinished as they are now, while J was doing some wiring, and I posted on facebook that I was craving whoopie pies, and I read magazines on my ipad, and I felt Hannah kicking.  Now the building is back in the same shape, and we have a Hannah, and life is completely different, and the building is coming down rather than going up.

Fun with Boxes!

But in unrelated news, it rained all day yesterday, so we had Rainy Day Fun, which involved figuring out a gazillion things to do with a cardboard box while staying in our PJ's.  Examples: you can sit in it.  You can hide in it.  You can get pushed and pulled in it.  You can put things in it, and then take them back out.  You can put all your stuffed animals in it, and then sit on top of them.  You can sit in it and close it up so you have your own private space.  Who knew there was so much you could do with a cardboard box???

Hannah's birthday is this week, and I may have gone just a tad crazy on the toys.  But here's what I figure.  I figure that she won't really be getting more until Christmas, so this lot is going to have to do her for four and a half months, which, in baby time, is like forever.  So I got stuff that may be a little advanced for her (like a my first leggo-wannabee set of giant blocks, and organic edible crayons) because I figure that by November she might be totally into it.  She also got some more normal age appropriate stuff like shape sorters, pull toys, bead mazes, pounding things, some bath toys, and baby musical instruments.  We went to Ikea last weekend to get a baby duvet set for her crib (now that she's a year old, she can have blankets, and I wanted to make her crib more friendly and cozy looking than just the gross white sheet that seemed to always get stained with her drool).  But anyway, I had no idea that Ikea had so many kickass toys in their baby department.  I bought one of everything.  Even some things that she already has one of - like a ring stacker thing - because with toys like that, it's good to have variety (so she says, justifying it).  She's also getting some German baby books and I heard a rumor that her Opa (originally from Leipzig) has purchased some German cartoon kids' dvd's from Amazon.de, which will play in our playstation.  And she also got her little duvet and sheet set, which I gave her early, and she adores. She still moves around too much to actually sleep under the blanket; I just put her in her little sleep sack on top of the duvet, and then in the mornings sometimes I catch her kissing it.  It's very sweet.

To celebrate her birthday on Saturday (2 days late) we are doing a 10k at the lake (the Run Through The Pines, which they have every year) and then the grandparents are coming up, and maybe her little friend Neil (baby of Jason and Katie, born about 6 weeks after Hannah). I'll get some pre-made food at Costco to pop in the oven, and we'll have a nice meal, but I refuse to do a cake smash.  I got her a brand new sweet birthday outfit, and I'm not ruining it with a cake smash.  It is one tradition that I am not going anywhere near.

In fact, I am not baking a cake at all.  I have enough issues with food, and J has enough issues with alcohol that the chances are pretty strong that our babygirl is going to grow up with some addictive tendencies of her own.  I'm not going to start a precedent that happy occasions mean sugary crappy food, and so we will be having a nice healthy meal (post 10k) and perhaps the adults will have cupcakes.  Maybe.

And that, my friends, is how we do birthdays in HeatherWorld.  At least, it's how we're doing brithdays this year.  Next year it might not be so easy.  For one, I probably won't be able to keep her presents in a big Ikea bag next to her crib without her catching on to them being there... There's pros and cons to every age, I'm finding.  Right now she is teething and fussy, so that's crappy.  But I can keep her presents in her room, 3 feet from where she sleeps, and she has no clue.  Plus I don't have to wrap them.  Pretty awesome.

Adventures in Baby Gear: The Solid Foods Edition

Baby H is eating solids now, and the earth-mother-goddess in me really wants to be all granola-y and make all her food myself.  No buying jars for me.  Plus, it's cheaper.  And I'm nothing if not cheap.

So on Saturday I got this Infantino Squeeze Station at Babies R Us, and a Fresh Starts baby food grinder.  Jonathan went to a bachelor party, and I got cooking and squeezing.

The setup.

Steam the frozen peas

baby food grinder

grind the peas

Ground peas.   Yum yum.

ground peas go into the top of the squeeze station.  Use the pushy thingy to push them down into the pouch.

And the finished product - Yummmmmmy pouch of organic peas!

Mommy Daughter Culture Day: Huntington Library

A few months ago I started doing regular Mommy Daughter Culture Days on Sundays with Hannah.  It was mid-December, I'd just figured out how to pump while driving (hands free bra and car adapter) and I was ready to stretch the pumping tether that had me staying close to home from the time Hannah had been born.  So we went to LACMA, where Hannah got a free kid's membership that entitles her to go to the museum free with an adult until she's 18 (yeah, I sniff out culture deals).

So that got us started on Mommy Daughter Culture Day.  It's a nice time for us to go do something special, it gives J a break at home, and it gives me a chance to go out and do stuff in my city that I wouldn't normally do.

Since that LACMA day in December she's been to the Norton Simon in Pasadena, the Getty, the California Heritage Museum in Santa Monica, the Riverside Art Museum, and some other places which I now forget.

We welcomed Spring with a trip to the Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens in San Marino.  I've been wanting to go to the Huntington for ages - they have an amazing collection of old maps, and it seems like every time I look at a map in a history book, it's courtesy of the Huntington.

They have the most amazing gardens - 120 acres divided up into gardens from lots of different countries.  So there's a Shakespeare garden, an Australian garden, a Japanese garden (with a bamboo forest - amazing to hear the trees blowing in the wind), a Chinese garden, and a jungle garden.  Kind of reminded me of the first time I was ever at Longwood Gardens when I was about five or six, when we were walking around for what seemed like hours, and I thought I was going to die of thirst.

Anyway, that's just the grounds.  Then they have like three buildings full or art and old maps and other cool stuff.  I'm considering buying a membership so I can go more often - I can't imagine that I could ever get sick of that place.

A special highlight was that Hannah sat in grass for the first time ever.  Up here in the mountains we don't have much in the way of fresh grass, and anyway, it's been winter.  So she had a good time sitting in the grass, pulling on it, trying to eat it, etc.  And I had a good time trying to keep her from eating the grass, etc.

A night in the life... (aka Analyze This, Freud)

Last night was a weird night of sleeping.  Well, every night is pretty much a weird night of sleeping these days, but last night really topped the list of Weirdest Sleeping Experiences Since Having A Child.

Hannah went to sleep around 10.  Woke up at 12:45 and 4.  I took the 12:45am feed, Jonathan took the 4.  He turned the heater on high, which made me quite warm, so even though I wasn't feeding Hannah, I woke up and was all hot.  Then, since he always winds up staying awake for a little while after each feeding, he looked at his computer, and the glow kept me awake.  Also, I had my alarm set for 6:45 because I had a 10:30am meeting in Carlsbad, and needed to leave the house around 8.

So...

10pm: down.  This first stint of sleep was uneventful (which is good in my book).
12:45am: up.  Feed Hannah.
Try to go back down.
Have the following Weird Dreams:
- My choir was singing in a viking ship that kept moving around and we were all getting jostled and falling overboard.
- Jonathan became an actor and got a part in a movie filming in NYC and we lived there.  For some reason, our mugs and teas were already in the apartment when we moved in.  He decided the movie wasn't actually good, so he quit, and some big burly man came to move us out.
- In that same dream, my mom was the star of the movie, and I didn't even know she acted until I saw her on the plane.

4am: Hannah up.
I feign sleeping so Jonathan gets her first (a sneaky trick I use sometimes)
Heater starts blasting.  I kick off covers.
4:15 Hannah back down.
Jonathan opens computer.  Glow permeates my eyelids.
Heater still blasting.
I kick off socks.
Glow still glowing.
5am: I get up all stroppily and half asleep and insist that the heater goes off, and turn it off.
Back to bed.
Have the following dreams:
- I was at a pool party with Matt Damon and Tom Cruise, who were romantically involved.  With each other.
- Hannah suddenly had a mouth full of teeth and wanted to eat pad thai.
- A volcano started erupting outside my house, but for some reason I was really chill about it, and built a moat to keep the lava from coming into our living room.
- Back at the Gay Tom Cruise and Matt Damon pool party I started sliding down the sliding board and suddenly the pool was filled with cupcakes, which became very messy.

5:45: reset alarm for 7:15 so I get an extra half an hour of sleep.  I don't need a shower, I figure.  I can stink.  Special allowances for stinking should be made for people with infants and small children.

6:15: Jonathan wakes me, worried that I've overslept.  I have a brief moment of panic while checking the clock.  This seriously pisses me off at the time, but I know he was just looking out for me (still a little bitter).

6:45: Hannah starts talking, so I wake up.  Decide to take a bath.  Start to fill the tub up, but for some reason I don't turn it all the way to hot, so lukewarm water is going in.  Go out to make coffee, unaware of this.  Go back to turn off water, and tub is not hot.  Let out a little bit of water (and feel guilty because we are in a drought) and put more hot in, but the hot is running out, so my bath is destined to be chilly.  This reminds me of the flats I lived in in England where you had to remember to turn the hot water heaters on in time for the water to heat up before your bath, and I was always forgetting and taking cold baths.

Go back out to the kitchen to get coffee.  Spill it on the way back to the bathroom.  Of course.

I'm seriously surprised I made it to my meeting in time with the way my morning started out.  On the way I stopped at Starbucks for more coffee and realized my shirt was on inside out.  But at least I realized it before I had to be "on."

On the upside, since my meeting was in Carlsbad, 4 miles from the beach, I had a lovely lunchtime walk in bare feet along the shore before heading back home.  And for what it's worth, I highly recommend the beach in Carlsbad for taking walks.  And there's still sand in my shoes, which is a Dido song, and is more proof that everything in my life always seems to come back to Dido.

And now it's 8:15, and I'm going to try to have a less eventful night of sleep tonight.

Adventures in Sleep Rewiring and Babysitters

On Monday night I had a Whole Night Alone to myself.  In a hotel, at that.  I had an early meeting in Ventura, and it would have been silly to have left at 5am to beat traffic to get there in time.  So after choir rehearsal on Monday night, I headed west to Woodland Hills, and thus cut my drive time by something like 75% (because there was no traffic).

So here's how I expected it to go:
11pm - arrive at hotel and check in
11:15pm - fall asleep
8:15pm - wake up
9am - leave for meeting

Here's how it went
11pm - arrive at hotel and check in
11:15pm - try to go to sleep
11:30 - watch an episode of Downton Abbey on my laptop
12:30 - go to sleep
2am - wake up
4am - wake up
6:30 - wake up
6:45 - give up on getting sleep
7am - go down and get coffee
7:15 - sit in a bubblebath watching more Downton on laptop drinking coffee
9:15 - leave for meeting

This was not what I expected, and left me very frustrated.  Then I realized that I should never have expectations of resting again for at least five years.  I will be much less disappointed if I just never expect to feel rested.  I suppose I am just wired to wake up all the time now.

That said, a friend did recommend using sleeping pills when I get a night off, and I shall be taking my Ativan with me on my next work trip, that's for sure.  And that trip will probably be in March.  Not like I'm counting down already or anything...

In other Baby News, we left Hannah with a sitter for the first time yesterday.  We found her through an ad she put up in the post office, but she had also sent me a note on care.com, so it was meant to be.  She's just a little younger than us, has two kids, and Hannah loves her, and lights up and smiles whenever she comes in.  Last night we went out to dinner, and were going to go bowling, but we realized after dinner that we were just too tired, so we went home and took a nap.  Not the most romantic way to enjoy a first date using a sitter, but it was needed.

Today she came over again, and we used the time to clean up around the house and yard, and just do some random stuff that we wouldn't have had time to do otherwise.  I heard Hannah fussing and fighting sleep at one point, and was going to go out and try to soothe her until I realized that this is what I was paying the sitter for.  I heard her reading stories, playing peek a boo, and singing songs until Hannah finally fell asleep, and which point the sitter left, her work done.  It was so nice to just continue putting laundry away and not have to worry about trying to get Hannah to go down for a nap.  I think we're going to use her about 10-15 hours a week now - one or two nights during the week to give us a break, and then some time on the weekends.  It's a luxury, but one that is worth every penny to our mental states.

The Week From Hell (aka Major Travel Fail)

I remember when I was in college, they used to call Finals Hell Week.  At the time it seemed appropriate, but after the 10 days I just had, the idea that college finals could be Hell is just funny to me.

So I had this genius idea that I should mix a business trip to Philadelphia for a 3 day long conference with a family visit in Lancaster, 60 miles west of Philadelphia.  Hannah would get grandparent time, I could commute on the train, and all would work out just peachy. Great idea, right?

Ok, so the train rides was fun.

But other than that, it was one of those things that are a good idea in theory, but not so much in practice.

Hannah was uncomfortable in a new place with new smells and new people and a new pack and play, so she was waking up every 90 minutes or so through the night and refusing to go back to sleep.

The polar vortex came back and I was freezing my ass off waiting for the train and trudging around Philadelphia when I could have just stayed in the nice warm Marriott attached to the convention center, and never have had to go outside.

All the stress of being with family was mixed with the stress of trying to be professional throughout the day after my commute and trudge through the snow.

And then Hannah got croup.  I took her to urgent care, they scared the shit out of me telling me her oxygen levels were low and I needed to go to the ER, and we couldn't travel on our planned day, and were stuck in Lancaster for a few extra days.  Oh, and they took her temp rectally and gave her a steroid shot, so she was a real joy that evening.  Poor baby.

All of this while I was trying to work on a huge IMLS grant (Institute of Museum and Library Services) that was due this past Monday at 2pm.

When I finally did fly back I was in one of Dante's outer circles of hell.  The way out I had Hannah in her own seat which was great.  But because of all the changing of flights and the last minute cancellations, that was a little pricey to do for the two of us, so she sat on my lap.

Rather, she squirmed on my lap.  And cried on my lap.  And threw fits on my lap.  And pooped on my lap.  And threw up on my lap.  And on my shirt.  And in my hair.  And of course she wouldn't eat when we were sitting in our seats doing nothing.  Nooooo, she had to eat when we had 45 minutes to change planes in Chicago so that mom (me) couldn't get any food.  Clever girl, she is.

Meanwhile my husband was at home getting Alone Guy Time and doing all the things he can't do when we're here.  Like sleeping all night.  Interrupted night sleep.  God, how I do miss you, uninterrupted sleep.  Not like I'm bitter or anything.

So I'm officially owed several nights of Alone Time now, and I'm planning how to best spend them.  So far the top two ideas are going on a spiritual retreat at a monastery by the ocean, and just getting a hotel room on the beach for a weekend.  Mama needs Alone Time to recover after that!

And I'm NEVER trying to mix family time with work time again.  Ever.  Never.  Never ever.

Oh, and in positive news, for those following the torture that my boobs have been going through, I'm officially not pumping any longer.  Hannah is on formula and that's all there is to it.  She'll be starting solids soon, we still have about 150 ounces of breast milk frozen, and other than that she's on Enfamil Gentlease and I've returned the pump to the rental store (though I had some sort of Stockholm Syndrome with it - I hated that damn Medela Symphony.  But I couldn't part with it without tears.)  Yay for no more pumping!!

On having a messed up pelvis

So my Hannah was five months old yesterday, and someone on my August mommies board started doing these chalk board things every month; now I'm copying.  That's my little stinker, who is now napping in her swing.  

Things are looking up for me with my PPD.  Being on less sugar is definitely making a difference.  I've also been exercising 6 times a week, and the endorphins are working for me.  And I started singing with the Claremont Chorale again this week after taking the fall term off, and I saw my magical osteopath friend Lori.  In addition to being an osteopath, Lori is a minister, and a "healer" in the ancient sense of the word.  So Lori asks me how I'm doing, and I respond that I'm dealing with some PPD, and she immediately pulls me into a separate room and starts poking around my butt, prodding and pushing.  "You had a hard labor," she says.  "Yep.  How can you tell?"  "Your butt is out of alignment, your pelvis isn't back in the right place, there's too much energy here with not enough room to get out."  

Ummmmm....

So Lori teaches me some stretches that I can do to release all this pelvic energy, or whatever it's called, and she says that's going to make a big difference in my depression.  Weird how that can work.  I didn't doubt it because I trust Lori completely, but then I googled "pelvic alignment post partum depression" and found some official articles that say basically the same thing that Lori said, but in more medical terms.   

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelvic_girdle_pain

There are also a bunch of PPD blogs that mention the pelvic pain.

http://mypostpartumvoice.com/2010/09/16/postpartum-voice-of-the-week-sue-of-sueandfadra-at-lives-less-ordinary/

http://www.motherhoodandme.com/2010/09/15/my-voice-my-depression/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17545912

Knowing that my depression might be linked to my pelvic issues, which I had during pregnancy too (getting dressed, rolling over in bed, getting out of the car, etc., were all very painful) I'm going to put off going on the happy meds for a little while and try these stretches and yoga poses that Lori taught me.  If it's related to my pelvis, then going on antidepressants isn't actually treating the problem in the first place.

I just need to get my husband's blessing on this experiment....

Two Lines

A year ago I found out I was pregnant.

I had suspected that I was pregnant for about 9 days, but hadn't tested because then it would become real.  What was just a late period on December 15, became a baby on December 16, thanks to the miracles of peeing on a stick.

I started suspecting I might be pregnant on December 7.  It was a Friday night, and we were out with my friend Jerin.  I was super-tired and wanted a nap on the drive down to see him, which was always an early symptom for me.  And when he asked me to taste his homemade holiday mead, I just took a tiny sip in case I actually was preggo.  When we were at dinner, I kept running to the bathroom to see if my period had come yet.  Nope.  On the 8th we went new car shopping, and picked out the Cmax, which we picked up on the 10th.  Still nothing.

I started googling what Letrozole could do to your cycles - that was the drug I had been taking that cycle.  Everything I saw said that Letrozole could actually make cycles shorter, not longer.  I also started needing naps, which always seems to be the telltale sign for me.  So my hopes got a little higher.  But I resolved that I would wait until the following Sunday, the 16th, to test.

Saturday night we watched It's a Wonderful Life, and I bawled my eyes out.  Another sign that my hormones were out of whack, in some way or another.

Sunday I went to Von's and bought organic apples, a big bottle of water, and a pregnancy test (which had been in a locked case - nothing like asking a teenage guy to get you a pregnancy test).  I couldn't wait till I got home, and went right into the bathroom in the store.  I knew that I should actually test first thing in the morning when the hormones are higher, but I figured that it was far enough along that a positive line would show up if it was going to appear.  I've peed on lots of pregnancy tests in grocery stores.  Generally because when we were doing artificial insemination, J would make fun of me for testing too soon, so I would never want to bring a test home and risk him telling me that I was just wasting money, and should wait until I missed a period the way they did before pee-sticks came along.  So I'm used to the drill of peeing on sticks in grocery store bathrooms.  I'm even more used to getting a negative in grocery store bathrooms.  I'd strain to see whether a line would appear for several minutes, willing it, thinking that maybe that tiny little pink dot right there was a line?  Can't you see it?  Doesn't that count?  No.  It doesn't.  I'd cry for a minute or two in the stall, then gather up my stuff, check the test one last time, then go out and wash my face, and go back into the world.

This time I sat in the stall tapping my feet, biting my lip, and pulling the sticker off my apple while the screen was flooded with pink - this was nothing new - the dye always runs across the whole panel before you see whether it "sticks" on the line.  I tried not to look.  I sat the test on top of the toilet paper holder and turned my head, and counted to sixty.  When I turned back, there was the darkest line I'd ever seen.  Suddenly I was shaky and nauseous.  I looked down at my belly.  There was a baby in there.  This wasn't just a late period.  There was an actual baby growing in my tummy.

I stepped out of the stall where a queue of women had been forming, and held up the test.  They all clapped, and asked if it was my first.  I explained that I had been pregnant twice before, so was keeping my fingers crossed for this one to work.  They all said that the third time was the charm, and it was a special Christmas gift, so it would surely work out.

I put the test in my pocket, walked out to my car, eating my apple, and started talking to the baby.  "Ok, baby," I said.  "You're in there now; it's just you and me in this together, and we're gonna do it, ok?  If you're not in it for the long haul, then you should just go now.  But if you stick around, I'm going to do my best to make your environment comfy and cozy, and take really good care of you.  And we'll have an awesome life together.  But you have to stick.  You can't pull this crap of sticking for a little while and then leaving.  If you're going to do that, then just leave now.  I'll let you think about it a little bit, ok?  I'll check in with you again tomorrow when you've had time to think it through."

The next night I went to the Messiah Sing a Long at Disney Hall with my friend Sarah.  It went late thanks to carol singing in the lobby, and J texted me:  "Come home.  It's 11.  You're pregnant.  You need sleep."  That was the coolest text ever.

Hannah did threaten to leave, a month later in mid-January, when I thought I was miscarrying for three days.  And again, I sat her down and had a talk with her.  "We made a deal, little baby," I said.  "I'm holding up my end of the bargain.  You need to hold up your end, too.  If you're going to go, we will still love you, obviously, but we really hope you stick around.  Because we're planning an awesome life for you."  Then I camped out on the couch watching Girls and playing Skyrim to keep my mind off of it.

And now here we are a year later, with me wondering whether I'll ever sleep a full night and feel rested again in this lifetime, thanks to this little goober who melts my heart when she wakes up and smiles at me.  She gives me the biggest grins, and just looks like she's so in love with me.  And it all started a year ago.  It's always going to be a special day for me.

3am feeds just got a lot cooler

Two pieces of awesome happened to make nighttime feeds a lot cooler (which isn't actually saying as much as I'd like, considering nighttime feeds aren't very cool to begin with).  So here's where I'm at with feeding:

Hannah won't breastfeed.

My girl likes to eat (she's like her mom that way).  And she likes to eat a lot very quickly.  You could say she scarfs down her milk.  In the NICU when she wasn't even 48 hours old, they were already changing her to the slow-flow bottles because she ate so damn fast and kept spitting up.  Plus, speaking of the NICU, she got hooked on bottles and pacifiers there.  So then, when I tried to feed her, she was all, "hey, this is more work, and it's slower, and I'm not a fan of more work and slower when I can get more faster for less work."  She's clever and into efficiency like that.

So I'm pumping.  8 weeks tomorrow of pumping 7 times a day for 15-20 minutes at a shot so I can give my girl my milk and not have to give her formula.  And it's not because I'm preachy about breastmilk.  I'm not a Boob Nazi like some of the lactation ladies at the hospital.  No, I'm just cheap.  Have you seen the price of formula lately?  They keep that shit locked up in stores because it gets stolen so much.  At my breastfeeding class they said that the average formula fed baby costs their parents $3000 the first year.  We've got a wedding in Sweden to go to next year - ain't no way I'm spending $3000 on food when my boobs make it for free.  Plus, it apparently burns 20 calories an ounce.  30 ounces a day = 600 calories = pass the cheesecake.

But I digress.

The point is, nighttime feedings are a bit tricky because when babygirl cries (her sweet little "ah-waeh! ah-waeh!") I gotsta feed her with a bottle first (I always keep an extra one out - I've read all kinds of stats about how long you can keep breastmilk out, ranging from 4-10 hours.  I average somewhere in the 5-6 hour range personally).  So babygirl eats.  Then babygirl burps.  

That's when Mama should be going back to bed.  But no.  Mama hooks her boobs up to a machine looking like it could have come from an episode of the Jestons, and sits in the dark for 15 minutes feeling like a cow getting milked (moooo).  Then Mama goes out to the kitchen to wash her pumping crap (though I recently got smart and now I have three sets of pumping crap so I don't have to wash overnight - I just store it all in a ziplock in the fridge), and then makes a fresh bottle to have on hand in another two hours when babygirl wakes up hungry.

The whole process takes about 45 minutes.

We live in a small house, and our bedroom doesn't have a lot of extra space, so up until now we've been sitting on the bed when we feed her, and when I pump,  This is horribly uncomfortable, forces us to slouch, and is generally an inelegant solution.

First bit of awesome: an amazingly comfortable upholstered rocking chair with stool we bought at an antique place in town over the weekend.  It's in the room that will become the nursery, so when babygirl cries, we just take her in there, sit down in back-and-arm-supported comfort, and rock away.

During my 15-20 minutes of pumping I can do whatever thanks to the hands free pumping bra I bought when I realized that this could very well be my life for the next few months (we still try breastfeeding regularly - my lactation consultant - yeah, I have one of those - thinks that as she gets older and her muscles get stronger, we might have success).  So I've been reading a lot.  15 minutes at a shot, 7 times a day is a lot of reading.

I have two apps on my ipad that are getting a ton of time right now.  The first is NextIssue, which is kind of like Spotify for magazines.  I have about 20 magazines in regular circulation there.  Some are intelligent ones like the New Yorker and Vanity Fair. But there's also Us Weekly with some Oprah, Real Simple, and Rachel Ray thrown in for good measure.

The other one is also like Spotify, but for ebooks.  Oyster just launched, and is only in an iphone app right now (which I use on my ipad) and they don't have a ton of publishers yet, but they seem to be a good effort in how to solve the problem of granting people unlimited reading at a price point they can stomach ($9.99/month).  Yeah, the library is free, but as we all know (me especially from our ebook project at work) the hold times on the popular titles are ginormous, and if this works, they will have a much bigger selection.  Right now the biggest publisher they have is HarperCollins (the only one of the Big 5 I believe they have), and they have a bunch of midsize ones like Houghton Mifflin, Workman, etc.  So they have a bunch of great titles.

The reader is pretty crap - instead of using one that's freely available (ie Bluefire) they went with building a dedicated one.  You scroll up to turn the page.  That's just weird.  They also don't have a ton of flexibility with changing the fonts and colors.  For example, there's a font I really like, but the nighttime setting has its own font, so I can't use the font I like with the nighttime setting, which seems stupid.  Let me pick the font, and the background.  The searching and browsing isn't great, but it's designed to be an app to use on your phone, so I can see why they are trying to keep it simple.  You can search on their website and add titles to your reading list online, so that makes it easier, I guess.

Anyway, on an average night I'm reading on my Oyster app at least twice, and I can definitely see it being worth the money for power readers.  It's available only through invitation right now, but if you sign up requesting one, it doesn't take long for it to arrive.

So between Oyster and the rocking chair, 3am is looking a lot less intimidating these days.  It's funny, the things that have become important to me.

fertility treatments (or how to drop $1200 on an unsuccessful IUI cycle)

J and I are going through Fertility Treatments.  I capitalize it as if it's a proper noun, a holiday, a day for turkey and apple pie.  It's more like Veterans Day.  Not a day for picnics or presents, but a somber time of reflection.  We have already done one cycle of IUI (Intra-Uterine-Insemination - or artificial insemination for those of you not in the know - which was me, two months ago) which wasn't successful, and are now going on to our second cycle now.  Which means I'm taking Clomid, progesterone, and J gets to give me an injection in my butt.  We really know how to keep the romance alive, I tell you.

It's an adjustment, this move into full on fertility work.  It makes the possibility that we may not be able to have children so much more real.  Up until now, it was always theoretical.  "If we lose another baby, we'll start the adoption process."  Or, "if I can't get pregnant by the time I'm 37 we'll start the adoption process."  I never really expected either of those things to come true, if I'm honest with myself.  It was something I hung on to, like an ace I never expected to need.  And yet, with each unsuccessful cycle, we get closer to the possibility that I might not actually ever go through a successful pregnancy ending with delivering a living baby.

It's made me sad, in a more profound way than I have been up until now.  Because I never really doubted that we would figure it out and be able to have kids.  And while I know that even if we do start adoption and stop fertility treatments I could still get pregnant later in life, the odds of that happening keep getting smaller.

IUI tends to work in 3-4 cycles if it's going to work at all.  We are just starting the second cycle.    Clomid on days 3-7 of my cycle ($20).  Day 12 ultrasound to see if my follicles are growing ($250).  Injection 36 hours before IUI ($98).  Sperm washing at the lab and Insemination on Day 14 ($600).  Blood test on Day 21 to see if I ovulated ($115).  Progesterone days 16-30 ($300).  You know I could buy a Louis Vuitton bag for what I will spend this month on fertility treatments?  And yet there's a lady in the grocery store with six kids hanging off her.  #notfair

But who said life was fair, right?  I made the decision to wait until I was older to start trying for a baby, and yes, we may have had some worse luck than others, but I'm guessing that if I had gotten married and started having kids when I was 24, things would look very different now.  Well, I'd have a teenager for one thing.  That would be weird.  I did what I did and it got me to where I am right now, and I don't really wish I was anywhere else.  Even in our sadness, J and I are still best friends, and we still laugh every morning.

I know I don't want to do IVF.  At least not now.  It's too invasive.  There are too many drugs, and too many hormones, and there are too many kids in the world who need good homes for us to spend money and energy on IVF.  So one way or another, all this uncertainty will end this fall.  We will either become pregnant, or we will start researching adoption.  Either way, it will be good to have the facts, and be able to make a plan based on them.

For now, we just embrace the uncertainty and keep our fingers crossed.

Letter from Fertility-Land

A few weeks ago I had a Little Fertility Breakdown.  Let me explain.  Once you're 35, you're supposed to go get checked out if you have been trying to get pregnant for 6 months, and haven't yet.  It has something to do with the quality of your eggs decreasing every 6 months, but really, it's designed to frighten you into the fertility specialist's office.  Am I bitter?  A little.

So there I sit, in the Loma Linda Center for Fertility and IVF, filling out paperwork, looking at all the other women around me, who also seem to be having trouble getting pregnant, or carrying a pregnancy.  Weird, how normal they look.  I always imagined people who couldn't conceive would have a sign on their forehead or something, but nope, these women look perfectly nice and healthy.

I get a check up, an ultrasound, and then the doctor orders a bunch of tests to check for things like the follicle stimulating hormone, my ovarian reserves, and other things that make no sense to me.  But here's the thing: my insurance doesn't cover anything fertility-related.  So I go to get the blood work, and find out that it's going to cost nearly $1500, just for blood tests.  My gut was telling me to leave and figure it out later, but the thing is, you're supposed to go on certain days of your cycle, and if you miss it, then you've got to wait for the next cycle, and I was afraid to leave, overcome with the sense of urgency that was instilled in me.

But my gut won, and we left.  It was all a bit traumatic, because I was at the same hospital where I delivered Baby T, and the whole thing was just overly emotional.  I don't want to have to take blood tests to have a baby.  I just want a freaking baby.  Why am I doing all of this, I wondered?  Why are we putting ourselves through all these tests?  There are babies in the world who need parents...why are we putting ourselves through all this mess when we could adopt one of them?  So we decided, after a lot of crying and deep breathing, to chill out about the whole thing.  We'll keep trying, but we'll also check out adoption, and try to just chill about it all.

A few weeks later and the doctors call me telling me that my OB/GYN can order most of the tests, and it will be covered by insurance because they can do it under a recurrent miscarriage workup (never thought I'd be happy for having had recurrent miscarriages).  So on Day 3 of my cycle I go back and get about 8 vials of blood drawn, and the results are starting to trickle in now.  

The best news is that I found out that my ovarian reserves are very good (yay!).  I think this means that I still have a lot of eggs.  So I don't have to freak out about my biological clock so much, and we can continue on the Path of Chillaxation.  That makes me so happy.  I had this feeling that we had to get pregnant like yesterday, or else it wasn't going to happen.  And the feeling would go up into my chest and before you knew it, I'd be hyperventilating in full Panic Attack mode.  So knowing that I still have good eggs left is a serious relief, and will go a long way towards helping me relax about the whole thing.

In fact, maybe we'll even skip trying for a couple of cycles so that I can get rip-roaring drunk in London in a few weeks.  I'm jonesing for a night out at Heaven, the gay bar under Charing Cross station, dancing on tables, losing every one of my inhibitions, and pretending that I'm 24 again.  Ahh, to be throwing up in the alley outside of a club again, house music swirling around inside my brains, peeing my pants and then falling asleep on the ground waiting for a cab.....those were the days....

A friend of mine once told me that he could always tell that I was happy when I stopped blogging.  And when I was depressed, I spent a lot of time sitting at home emptying wine bottles, writing about how my heart was broken, and the guy who didn't love me back was an asshole (this was, I should note, in my Single Girl blog, which would be about 10 years old this year).

So if I go away for a while, it's not because I'm pregnant, or I got kidnapped by a crazy gunman at 7-11, or anything like that.  It just means that I'm out doing my thing.  Especially with springtime arriving, I have spent as much time as possible outside, walking around the lake, and getting some extra doses of Vitamin D.

That being said, I don't want to just disappear again, so here's a lowdown on the events of the past few weeks:

1)  I decided to go to Seminary.  But I don't really know why.  I don't know that I ever want to have a church of my own, and preach.  Maybe.  I haven't thought that far ahead.  For now, it's enough to know that I just belong in Seminary studying the Bible, and being part of the conversation that creates Doctrine so that, you know, Christianity can be more about loving people, and not so much about excluding people because they're gay or whatever.

2)  My husband is hemming my performance dress for choir.  If you fancy hearing some nice a capella choral music on Saturday, the Claremont Chorale is performing at 3pm and I'll be up there in my hemmed dress, looking fancy.  It's super-cool that my husband can hem my dress, I should add.

3)  I've boarded the fertility treatment train.  But I'm not going to get carried away with it.  I'm really going to try to be conscious of the fact that you can easily spend thousands upon thousands of dollars, and lots of time and heartbreak, getting IVF and all that stuff, and frankly, I'm not that desperate to have a biological child.  If that's your thing, it's great that it's possible, and I applaud people who do it.  For me, I just want to have a baby.  I don't feel the need to genetically breed, and there are millions and millions of kids in the world who just want a family that loves them.  To me it seems like a needless expense, but that's just me being judgmental.

4)  We're also starting to seriously check out adoption, and are signed up to go to an open-day at an agency in the summer.

5)  This summer is going to so totally rock.  We're going to NYC for me to go to Book Expo and negotiate with publishers about our ebook project for libraries.  Then PA for some Family Time.  Then London and...wait for it...I'm finally getting my ass to Iceland to see 24 hours of daylight.  I'm so stoked.

6)  In the Realm of Stupid Things I've Done to Lose Weight: last week was high up there.  I had a weight goal I wanted to make by Memorial Day.  As of Wednesday, I was still 3 pounds away.  So I went on a liquid diet.  Didn't eat any solid food for 4 days.  I made the weight (of course I gained it back since then) and had a fun day shopping at the Gap Outlet, which made me feel like I was 19 again, because their Muzak was Songs from the 90's, and nothing says 90's more than shopping at the Gap and listening to The Cure, but I digress...now I feel ridiculously dizzy, tired, and stupid for having done that.  But whatever, I have new clothes.  So...yay for new clothes...

Committee Meeting

Those of you who have had to "work" at getting pregnant (or Tried To Conceive: TTC for short) will know all about the Two Week Wait (TWW: another acronym).  For those of you who have been lucky enough to be incredibly fertile your whole lives, let me explain.  It's the (approximately) two week period after ovulation until the time when you can take a pregnancy test, and receive a reliable answer.

For those of us in the TTC world, entering the TWW is entering a Land of Crazy.  Every pang means something.  A lack of a pang means something.  Was that a cramp?  Does that mean I'm pregnant?  I'm super tired today.  Does that mean I'm pregnant?  Oh My God, I'm so hungry.  I bet that means I'm pregnant.  Sheesh, I was so nauseous on that drive today.  That must mean I'm pregnant.  

If you're really far gone you do things like:

- start your Birth Music Playlist on Spotify.

- start picking out baby names.

- insist that your hubby does the cat litter.  Just in case.

- justify the eating all sorts of weird food on a possible pregnancy.

These actions might be harmless if it wasn't for the letdown that comes after two weeks when you realize that you're not pregnant.  After two weeks of being sure that this cycle is going to be the one, after seeing signs everywhere, saving your positive ovulation sticks for the future baby book...it's all a bit of a nasty letdown.  So it's really best to not let yourself get too excited during the TWW.  Try to forget it's even happening.

There are a bunch of websites with tips on how to get through the TWW.  TwoWeekWait.com has lots of forums and other time-wasting features.  Basically, the goal is to distract yourself as much as possible.  I love playing Skyrim during the TWW because five hours can go by during which I think about nothing except how to kill dragons, increase my enchanting skill, and how to make my invisibility spell stronger.  Lots of places suggest things like taking bubblebaths, painting your toenails, etc.  But this list from MaternityCorner.com of 14 things to do when 14 days seems like forever has one of my favorites in: call a committee meeting of all the players going on inside of you, and make an appeal to them.

Make an appeal to the committee meeting going on inside you. Sperm, egg, uterus, corpus luteum, progesterone…they are in there either making a baby or not. Treat them like any other unruly committee you've ever addressed. 

So that's what I did today.  Below is a transcript of how the meeting went.  I should add that my Egg speaks with an English accent.  And for some reason, maybe because I'm listening to Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country about Australia, or maybe because I'm watching a lot of cricket right now, the Sperm sounded like an Ozzie.

Egg: Order!  Order!  Calm down everyone!  Ok.  We need to take minutes.  Who will take minutes this month?
Follicle: Well, my part is already over for this cycle, right?  So I can.

Egg: Thank you.  Yes, Follicle will take minutes.  Now, did everyone receive a copy of the agenda I sent out?
Sperm: Um, I'm kind of new here.  I didn't see an agenda.  Can I share with someone?
Egg: Oh, hello Sperm.  Good of you to join us.  Yes, here, share mine.  You will need to get very close, though.  Very close indeed.

Sperm: Are you coming on to me?

Egg: Oh, you!  (bats eyelashes).

Progesterone: Ok, while you guys are busy flirting, ahem, I need some instructions here.  

Corpus Luteum: Me too!

Egg:  Oh, for pete's sake.  Have we not been through this before?

Sperm: I haven't.  Is it complicated?

Egg: Fortunately, because you clearly have a brain the size of a microscopic peanut, your part is easy.  

Sperm: I'm bored.  How long is this meeting going to last?

Egg: Well, that's what we're trying to get to.  We need to decide what to do this month.  We have a guest speaker today.  The human we inhabit wants to make an appeal.  Should we all listen to her first?  Then we can decide?

Muffled Charlie Brown sounds coming from outside the uterine area:
Wwahh Mwah wah waaaaah Baby waaah Mwaaah Good Parents Waaaah Mwaaah MUST BREED SO FUCKING WELL GET IT TOGETHER YOU LOT.


Egg: Ok, I think we'll end it there.  She's clearly excitable.
Corpus Luteum: She sounds highly unstable.
Progesterone: Oh, nobody cares about your opinion.  Will you just keep up your end of the bargain, please?  I'm depending on you to keep me alive, not make judgments on the human.
Corpus Luteum: Well, then you should be nicer to me.
Egg: I think she's nice.  I've been hanging out with her for the past 35 years.  She's really ok.  A little odd, but she's harmless.
Sperm: Well, I can tell you that the guy I've been with is kind of weird himself.  I don't know about those two.
Egg:  Well. Mine reads Dickens.
Sperm: Mine watches Nascar and UFC.
Egg:  Oh. Well.  That could make a child well-rounded, no?
Sperm: I don't really know what that means.  Is there any food here?  Do you all have Nachos and Monster Energy drinks here?  That's my favorite.
Egg: Erm, no.  We have hummus and pita.  And salad.
Sperm: What's salad?

Progesterone: Look, should we lay out the cases for and against, and just take a vote?
Sperm: Say, there's like a million of me.  How many votes do I get?

....and so it goes.  On and on, for two weeks.  How it ends, nobody knows...

Will the real Mark Hoppus please stand up?

I had a bunch of things I wanted to do tonight...my Artist's Way Artist Date, work on a new EnglandCast, write 3000 words in my book...but instead I'm ripping a pile of CD's that have been sitting on the shelf above my desk driving me crazy for approximately six weeks.

Sometimes you just have to have evenings where you take care of crap like that, so it frees you up to do your most creative work, with a clear space.  Right?  I think so.

Nerve just ranked every 30 Rock character from least-funny to funniest - hint: the top five funniest are on page 6, so you can skip ahead past Liz's ex-boyfriends if you don't care that much.  There are clips for each one, and it can easily provide a good 45 minutes of wasted time.

That just reminded me that if Google ever made my search history public, I'd be pretty embarrassed.  The stream-of-consciousness that led to this thought is that I totally have a crush on Cheyenne Jackson on 30 Rock, the guy who plays Danny, because he looks like Mark Hoppus.  So for fun I searched google images for "guys who look like Mark Hoppus".  Which led to some funny results:

The Real Mark Hoppus

The one guy has Mark Hoppus' hair, kind of...

I'm not sure which one is supposed to look like Mark Hoppus.  The guy is all blurry, so...

Also tonight, combining both 30 Rock and Baby News, Jane Krakowski is pregnant at 42.  Posh and Becks are pregnant again, too.  Man, I hope we catch some of this celebrity baby-dust that's floating around Southern California right now about now.

New Year's Resolution: Check-in

It's early February now, and I thought I'd do a spot-check on my New Years Resolutions:

1. Listening to new music... I've definitely been doing this.
2. working out five times a week... this too, which is going more easily now thanks to my audiobooks.
3. cutting back on sugar... I feel like I've been doing this, but I should quantify it somehow.
4. drinking more water... definitely doing this.
5. going to one museum a month... did it in January.
6. finding a church for spirituality and friends... haven't done this yet. There's a Unitarian church down the hill I'd like to check out. Maybe this Sunday.
7. finding a choir or starting one... I did find one, but it's mid-term now and I can't join until September. That wouldn't be so bad if it's what it came to, but I'm holding out hope I can find something else.
8. reading at least one "smart" book a month... does listening to a book count? Otherwise, no.
9. journaling and meditating daily... not every day, but pretty good. Plus I started yoga.
10. playing the piano a few times a week... haven't done this, but I did have a lovely time playing the fiddle a couple weeks ago. Must do that.

So I'm doing ok, huh? Need to find church, sing, and play piano and violin more. Everything else is on track. That's good to know. I am going to check in like this once a month.

I would also add to it that I should write more. Every day. 500 words. No excuses. It's like a muscle, right. The more you do it, the better it becomes.

Ok, so that's my check in.
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A friend of mine just had another baby. Babies everywhere! Why won't people stop having babies already?!? Sheesh. Like I didn't have enough pressure already. Ick. Babies. Pregnancy. Who needs it. (Grandparents and husbands, I suppose)
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And when is Project Runway coming back?!?! I'm totally missing it. I know, there's legal problems. I'm watching the canadian version on youtube till it comes back. I miss that cute Heidi and Tim.

More on my ongoing entertainment crisis

Back in 2001 when I lived in London and was super trendy, I had a mac. One of those turquoise clamshell ones with the little handle so it was kind of like a cute briefcase. Like the kind Aiden bought Carrie on Sex and the City when her computer crashed. Anyway, I had itunes on that, but since then I've not been an itunes person. I subscribe to Rhapsody, and love it, and I have a creative zen 80gb player along with random assorted smaller ones that are better for travel, but I'm still a (reluctant) pc person, so I don't do much with itunes. But for fun I downloaded it the other day and was totally blown away by all the radio stations. I'm not sure why I find it so amazing - they just put streams of various international radio stations all in one place - but I'm just thrilled with it. J and I have been listening to hindi pop from Mumbai, and trip-hop from Frankfurt. It's pretty cool.

I still haven't been able to find books I want to read, but as it's Sunday, I'm planning to do a big closet-and-bookshelf clearout today (took down the Christmas decorations yesterday and need to reorganize the bookshelves) and I'm hoping that something in my huge library of unread books will show up. I have a new Haruki Murakami book that might be interesting.
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Yesterday I made really delicious sticky bbq ribs, and they were so easy. I'm not a big beef-eater (as opposed to beefeater, the British soldiers that wear the funny red outfits) so I don't buy a lot of it, but it was on sale for like $1 for a huge package so I bought it and figured I'd do something with it. I browned the meat, and then threw out the oily grease, put the meat back in the pan, covered it with bbq sauce and a little sugar and paprika, and then filled the pan mostly up with water. Let it come to a boil, then turned it down and let it simmer for 2 and a half hours, turning them over once. We have this tradition of getting bbq on the day of the Super Bowl (because we used to live by the famous BBQ King on Cesar Chavez) but after eating the stuff I made yesterday, J has declared that we don't ever need to buy bbq again. I really enjoy making new foods and trying new recipes. I guess that's the eggs talking or something. Nesting instinct.
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Speaking of nesting and eggs and babies, we were out at Carrows (our new favorite place to eat because two people can eat, and get desert and drinks and it's still less than $25 including tip) and there was the most adorable baby ever at the next booth over. J was just going crazy. 2010 is the year we have planned to have a baby, but at this rate, we're going to have to get pregnant tomorrow just to keep him from having his Baby Fits.
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I have a busy week ahead. I fly up to San Mateo for the day on Tuesday, arriving back home at 9ish, and then get to wake up early and head down to San Diego for a 10am meeting on Wednesday, which means I'll need to leave at about 7 or so.

When I have those kinds of busy times I realize that I spend a lot more time worrying about them in advance, than just being in the moment with them when they're going on. Inevitably they're never as bad as I think they're going to be, and I'm never as tired as I think I'm going to be, and I spend so much time and energy worrying about them for weeks ahead of time, that I lose a lot of life that way. I need to come up with a new resolution - not to worry about the stuff that hasn't happened yet. Because I'll either be really tired on Wednesday morning, or I won't. Either way, worrying about it isn't going to help me get more sleep.
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Oh, and the Big News, I got my official invitation to the inauguration. Too late, though. I can't get a flight this late without spending a fortune. On one hand, I'm like, "yeah, well, it's history, and I want to tell my grandkids that I was there!" and on the other hand, I think that it's not really worth $1000 to be able to say I was somewhere when I'll get a better view at home in front of the tv.

So I really have become a practicle person. I guess I really am out of my 20's now. Sigh.