Purrfectly good sewing maachine February 28, 2007
Posted by spacemom in : Home wreckers , 7 commentsSo after much thought, and mocking from Jay, who can’t understand why ANYONE would want to sew, I have decided to buy this machine.
Okay. You can STOP LAUGHING RIGHT NOW, Dammit!
It is cute and it has amazing reviews on the Target page.
But did I mention it is so darn cute?
And I just can’t stand to be normal anyway. Now to wait for my credit card cycle to close out so I can buy it guilt free! The book that Figlet suggested is on backorder anyway, so no rush!
HEY! I SAID STOP LAUGHING!
And you thought I was a rocket scientist? December 7, 2006
Posted by spacemom in : Kids, She Blinded me with Science, Religion, I dream of sleep, Home wreckers , 1 comment so farOh man, I have picked up a virus of nasty proportions. Add this to the lack of sleep in the space household and I am DEAD. Do you hear me? D-E-D DEAD! (yes, old joke about a football player who…oh never mind, I meant to spell it that way) Luna’s 2 year molars are on the move and trying to kill me. Suddenly, she wants NOTHING to do with Dr. Jay. The hell with him, it’s Mommy mommmy moooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmyyyyyyyyyy at 4:30 am. When Jay reported to the small minion of hell Luna that she was stuck with Daddy, her screamed turned to "I want a CAR RIDE. A CARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDE" Sigh. I seriously feel like crap. I need more sleep but it ain’t happening in this lifetime. Please help me in not strangling this child. These damn molars have. got. to. come.in! No more causing pain and then sneaking back into her gums. COME. IN. DAMMIT.!
The sun has been being a royal pain in our ass lately. There is a huge sunspot group. This has released some energy in the form of X-ray flares. Sigh. The observatory shut down last night to protect itself from this. Lovely. It is good and the better news is that I tripled up on duty the last few weeks, so I am not on again until January. But the bad news is that a piece of my software failed last night and now I am fixing it.
Jay and I are hoping to skip out of work early to stop and talk to some people about a fireplace insert. I know I know, lazy, but think of it, flip on a switch and whoosh! a glowing fire straight from our natural gas lines with a higher efficiency of heating than our heater. At bedtime, a simple flick of the switch and we turn it off. No smoke in the house, no logs (and spiders) to carry into the house, no poking at the fire while sparks fly and burn your clothes…Ah….The cost is $$$, but it is a luxury that we would like to do.
I am also at a loss for what to do with my over energetic 4 year old. She is refusing to sit still at school during her dance class. We are taking her out in January. She just won’t listen to the step by step instructions for the ballet part. If it involves tumbling or gymnastics, she loves it, but not the dance part. She’s been complaining that it’s too hard. But that is not a reason to stop, I say. Lots of things in life are hard.
Daycare is also getting annoyed that she won’t sit still during nap time. Okay folks, you are forcing the poor kid to sit still for 45 minutes on a mat. She doesn’t nap. It’s hard! We don’t do an enforced quiet time on the weekends or Mondays… sigh…
I do want to send a thanks to all of those who commented, either via the blog or email, on the Christmas Goodness post. I really appreciated the different ideas!
Spring has sprung November 30, 2006
Posted by spacemom in : She Blinded me with Science, Fun with Crohn's Disease, I dream of sleep, Home wreckers , 2 commentsIt is a beautiful day. Although it is a workout day, I am still going to sneak some time away from my desk and get a walk in. The sun is shinning and I can’t help but want to be outside. However, a few of the trees here have been tricked by the warm weather and have started to bud. One even has released 3 green leaves! Yikes. Global climate change indeed!
A quick update on Dr. Jay and the crohn’s hell. He has an appointment next Friday for Mass General Hospital. He is finally moving from an IBS (irritable bowl syndrome) specialist to someone who works more closely with crohn’s patients. He is not responding the to drugs as expected, so we hope that there is something the specialist can do at MGH, that his normal specialist can’t. His normal doc has suggested a drug that is IV, once a month. That freaks both of us out.
The cold I have is kicking my ass. I am so tired. Then last night, Luna got up three times. The third time, I took her, my pillow and our stuffed animals to the guest room/office and fell asleep on the futon. Did you know that a 2 year old can take up an entire full sized futon? Amazing, but true! And I had a dream about the Red Sox. You know there is something wrong when I dream about the Red Sox.
My vanity project slowed down due to my cold. I hope to stain it tonight if the girls help (by not driving me insane). Wish me luck.
And finally, I had my annual review yesterday. To my surprise, it took all of 10 minutes and my boss is very happy with me and is still okay with my 4 day schedule. This is my 10th year of working here and so far, this was the easiest review I have ever done.
I have another post brewing in my head…about the bloggers I wish I could meet in person…But not today!
Of Merlot and Polyurethane November 27, 2006
Posted by spacemom in : Kids, Home wreckers, In A Family Way , 2 commentsA few updates first: Mom is home. I tried to call today, but they were doing her discharge paperwork. This is good news. Apparently the hardest thing has been her arm (what you say?) Yes, when they did a blood gas test on her, the phlebologist accidentally went all of the way through the blood vessel. She has blood leaking out of the other side, but it should heal in a week or two.
Soleil is a nutcase, but she’s MY nut case. We discovered that one of the playgrounds we had frequented, but stopped due to the wood decaying, had been replaced. The new playground has a "rock outcropping" complete with fossils. Soleil discovered the trilobite fossils and immediately told everyone she could find. I had one mother roll her eyes and then snark at no-one in general, "I’ve never heard of a four year old who knows trilobites" I looked right at her and said, "yeah, she discovered them at the NE aquarium during the jellies display. They listed some of the animals that were living and became extinct during the time that the jellies have been around. The woman shut up. I swear, what, do I flash card the girl? NO!
Okay—-
I enjoyed a nice glass of merlot tonight as I was polyurethane some doors. Yes, I am back at it. I am terribly envious of people like Mrs. Figby and Chicagomom, who can do retail therapy AND look good doing it. Me? I need to change something in my house. And I have to do it myself. Screw contractors, I have to do it. Jay threatened me this morning with writing "It’s my wife’s fault" in the saw dust on his hood this morning.
Our house was build c1960. The main bath has the original vanity. Flat doors, boring handles, etc. We replaced the handles early on, removed the wallpaper (that had foil!! FOIL PEOPLE!) and replaced the death star globes with mini pendants. But, the vanity… I couldn’t take it any more. I took off a door and SANDED it. The stain that was half worn off came off with ease. I restained it, cherry and polyurethaned it. Jay said,"Why not do the whole thing?" So I took the other 3 doors off. Tonight I polyurethaned them. I had sanded the doors last night and stained them also.
During the girls’ TV time, I started sanding down the main of the vanity. I had quite of a bit of work to do, and I had to stop when I needed an extension cord. I’ll finish the sanding tomorrow and then stain once the girls are asleep. Then I might actually finish this by the weekend. It was not my plan, but hey, what can I say other than I need a new hobby…
I need more merlot to deal with the girls. We spent yesterday dealing with the defiance factor and today was much better, but I still give SAHM tons of credit. I would have hung myself years ago if I didn’t work.
And what did you do last week? September 24, 2006
Posted by spacemom in : Home wreckers , 3 commentsI wasn’t a very good poster, nor reader this past week. Oh well, this is what happens when you redo the bedroom. Despite my best intentions to take the week off completely to focus on this project, I was needed at work about 2 hours of every day.
Oh well, I spent most of yesterday finishing the painting and by 10pm, we finished moving the furniture around.
I spent most of the days working to TLC. I found that some of these shows were, to put it in Johnny’s words, "sunshine up your ass". All of the baby stories were sweet and kind. Of course, I am sure they didn’t go around looking for people who were high risk, and few of the couples were infertility patients, and of course, the worst thing that happened during labor was an epidural headache. I did feel that if you are watching these shows because you are expecting your first, then you might want to know that there are more scary cases of bad births and occasional deaths. It is scary, but it’s what happens.
Then I fell in love with "What not to wear". That was a nice show. I wish I had $5000 to buy a new wardrobe.
The show "10 Years Younger" was a disturbing concept. They took a person (all women that I saw), who wanted help and they have 100 people look at the person and come up with an age for them. Then the show’s goal is to do dental, facial, hair & makeup and clothes to make the person look 10 years younger. I do think the people looked better, but I wonder if the concept of worshiping the age you look instead of the age you feel is reasonable or not.
I doubt I would be a long term TLC watcher, but it was either that or Nick Jr….
So, you probably want the photos… Here are the before and afters. The Befores were taken in April, 2003 and the Afters were taken tonight.
BEFORE:
AFTER:
Daytime drama September 20, 2006
Posted by spacemom in : Life...otherwise, Spacemom, Home wreckers , add a commentI stayed home today painting the master bedroom. Good news, I got the two walls painted that I had planned on. Bad news? I still have two to go!
Since work has been crazy, this has been the first possible week in months that I could take off to do this painting. I was told by my bosses that I might be needed at work this week. Okay, so I am checking my email every morning. This morning’s email was that my co-worker’s daughter had a regular checkup yesterday and her 37 week pregnancy is over. No heartbeat.
This hit me hard. I know R was really excited about his first granddaughter. But I think it hit hard in other ways. I had two losses while building the space family. Luckily for me, they were early. Crazy H lost her son late, 32 weeks. I can’t compare the two pains and griefs because they just are so different. At 8 weeks, I had dreams for Pathfinder. At 32 weeks, H had felt her son.
This really ripped through me this morning and I switched my TV watching while painting from TLC to the History Channel. It was much easier to watch 3 hours of adult dying than it was to watch 3 hours of baby stories today. I think of the terrors I had at 33 weeks with both girls, I was in the hospital in May with Luna. Fighting contractions. Everybody looking at me with this pained look, "oh, you’re 33 weeks"..
I remember willing the contractions to stop. For her to keep growing.
I remembered the odd case of my friend S. At 38 weeks, something felt wrong. She decided to mention it at her regular check up. The NST showed a saw tooth heartbeat on her son. She had an emergency C-section and her son was given blood transfusions. For some reason, her body started to drain all of his blood from his body. He is a fine 3 year old today.
There are so many stories out there. Good and bad. Right now, I am following Julia’s story. I am nervous for her, but holding out hope because good things can happen…
There is too much drama right now. I need a little less.
supporting the economy September 15, 2006
Posted by spacemom in : Life...otherwise, Nance, Home wreckers , 1 comment so farTomorrow, two mom friends and I are hitting the local outlet mall. We leave Metro West Boston at 9:30 with Dunkin’ donuts in hand to get to Wrentham outlets!
So darn exciting. Most of this trip is for ME ME ME! I have discovered the my pregnancy with Luna has left me with size 7-7.5 feet. Hmm, is this why NONE of my size 6.5 shoes FIT?? Ack! So I need at least 3 pairs of shoes! I know I know! I hate shopping for shoes…But maybe I’ll get lucky.
I also want to get some nice pants. I am starting to get tired of my jeans and nice shirt look at work…but then again, they are so comfy….
I do need to buy some dressed for the girls. They have both decided that dresses are the THING to have. Luna gets irrational if you give her pants. G-d FORBID she wear pants.
So far, things are going a bit smoother at work. I am looking at taking most of the day off Tuesday, All of Wednesday, all of Thursday and most of Friday. There is a meeting on Tuesday I need to come in for, a goodbye to my admin person on Friday, but MAYBE I can actually FINISH the bedroom in between? I have 2 walls stripped of wall paper, but only 1/2 washed (you need to wash the remaining paste off before you patch and prime). The hope is to get the base coat down Sunday or Monday night on these two walls and then strip and clean one more wall on Tuesday. I really hate the stripping wallpaper part. I know I’ve said it before…
Yesterday, Soleil’s Pre-K teacher related a funny story to me. They were asking the kids where the dinosaurs they were playing with should live. Soleil’s answer? The Cretaceous period. Oh yeah, That’s my girl! Then we had a debate between Jay and I whether T. Rex lived in the Cretaceous or Jurassic period. I lost, it was the Cretaceous. Soleil told me "Of course it was mommy." Damn you Leap Pad! You have taught my child more of the dinosaurs than I know!
Life and an update September 13, 2006
Posted by spacemom in : Weblogs, Life...otherwise, Home wreckers , 1 comment so farFirst, I have dropped the password for now. I am checking my stats and deciding if I am happy with this or not. At the moment, I am leaning towards staying at typepad. I have until October 8 to decide.
Life, oh my. Life.
I have taken down the wallpaper from 1 3/4 walls from our bedroom. I want to finish these two walls (ie, clean, prime and paint) before I continue with the other two since I can’t move all of the furniture away from the walls. This is one of the things I hate doing. I LOVE painting. I HATE stripping wallpaper. However, it costs almost $500 a ROOM to get wall paper removed by a pro. Screw that. I am planning to take next week off and finishing the project so we can actually get this done before the holiday (Rosh Hananah is Sept 23). I doubt I’ll get it done, but I have to try. I can’t wait to get this damn paper off. When we first moved in, we saw how the paper had faded around their picture frames. But it was a strange yellowish fade. Then I realized this was the Northeast wall which NEVER saw sunlight and I figured out it wasn’t sun fade, but SMOKE stains. Ick ick ick. The floor has multiple cigarette burns too, but we are getting the floor refinished in May, so that should go away then…
My bosses are willing to give me the time off, BUT I may still have to work. You see, there is this asshole idiot moronGuy in the White House who thinks we need a manned mission to Mars. Ok-ay… Well, this has cause NASA to redirect their budgets. Which means we are running short staffed on our contract with NASA. We have 4 people on our team. We should have 6. I may need to log in and come in if needed next week because we are so short handed. Thanks Pres Bush! Love ya DoubleYa!
I just got a tax bill for Annabelle, my car. The town valuated my car $3,000 more than I paid for her. So now I need to get the bill of sale, call and get it revalued… Mass does a funny thing of an excise tax on your car. So, I pay $25.00 per $1,000 of value. This means they are asking for $75 more than I should be paying. Grrrr.
I have several posts rolling in my head, but little time. Today is a meeting day. I have three meetings and some new software to write. Anyone written a module in Perl before? I think I need to write one soon and my training is in C,and C++….
Sigh…
The post in which Nance babbles June 8, 2006
Posted by spacemom in : Fun with Crohn's Disease, Mom Phrases, I dream of sleep, Home wreckers , 3 commentsHere I am, 9:46 am, in my Jammies. I decided to work from home today because we should have a glass shower door installed. Note the should. The woman from the shower door place is supposed to call me back. The factory took almost 1 month to build a door that should have taken 1 week. Sigh.
Once the shower door is installed, I need to caulk around the wood baseboards and we are DONE in that bathroom minus the venting fan. Only took 21 months…. Sheesh.
Last night, we were watching a baseball game and Dr. Jay commented on the drug scandal in baseball. "I finally understand Jason Giambi’s intestinal issue" He believes it was steroid withdrawal. It makes sense given the pain that Dr. Jay is in and how Giambi’s pain was described. It was also reported that Giambi had a pituitary tumor. Steroids affect a feedback system that involves the pituitary. It is called the "something that I can’t remember" axis. I call it the "axis of evil". It is amazing to watch these players detox from steroids. What idiot would go on these things voluntarily?? Really? These things suck.
At 2:30am, I was awoken to the sounds of Luna climbing out of bed. Dr. Jay had gotten her at 1:30, so I offered to help her. She proceeded to throw a full blown tantrum because I wasn’t Daddy. I hate the tantrum phase. It lasted 15 minutes. I sat in the comfy chair, doing some calming yoga breathing while she lost it. Finally, she let me pick her up. She was asleep in 5 minutes, but I held her for 5 more just to snuggle. There have been some posts on sleep lately. I am working on it. Dr. Jay told me about an article on how Ferber is harmful to kids and how it should make me feel better that I can’t do the cry it out. I told him that I respect those who choose it. I just can’t do it. I guess I am odd that way. I don’t mind if you do things in raising your kid (except spanking and humiliation, I will speak against those), but I generally don’t push my POV.
Overheard in the spacehouse, "Luna, No more broccoli until you eat some pasta"
The things we say!
Time to shower and get myself going. I have two car dealerships to visit today and some coding to get done plus some testing. Oh, and I want to clean Soleil’s room. Ha!
That was just a dream…just a dream June 6, 2006
Posted by spacemom in : Kids, I dream of sleep, Home wreckers , add a commentYesterday, I forgot to charge my MP3 player. The kids had the choice of no music or Mommy music. They chose Mommy music. Then REM came on and I was just singing without thinking, as most adults do. Soleil then asked "Mommy? Why is it just a dream?" Huh? Oh yeah, "It’s just the words to the song" "But WHY?" "Because people dream of many things…"
Today, I am dreaming of two things: a car and a child.
I am taking part of Thursday off to talk to two dealers about the car. I think I can get the price down to $18.5K or less before trade-in. I am getting obsessed, but I can’t actually do anything because we don’t have the money in place yet. The finances are in motion, we need confirmations. I have the dream of the new car smell, the volume controls on the steering wheel, the sunroof over my head, Oh yeah I want this car!
The child. Yes, well Soleil has decided that almost being 4 means that she can do whatever she wants. This is getting pretty damn frustrating. Last night, she was being, well, 4 and it was driving us nuts. She refused to eat anything for dinner, she got angry and silly and fell off her chair. UGH. Sometimes I wonder if she will ever listen! But then I remember that I want my kids to be independent. And to do what is right to them. (While being respectful, we are teaching that, TRUST me)…
But right now she is driving me nuts!
And a third thought. We had Crazy H and family over on Sunday. Her oldest, Alex, is 2 weeks younger than Luna. She always compares the two. Drives me batty. On Sunday, Soleil asked for a pancake and we got it for her. Meanwhile, Alex is following Dr. Jay and her dad around saying "me me me pancake me me me" I finally asked "Alex, would you like a pancake?" to which she smiled and nodded "yesh, pan cake"
Dr. Jay went and got one for her. Crazy H said "she just said pancake? She never talks!" Um, sweetie, your daughter talks, you need to listen….
