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Beauty is skin deep October 18, 2006

Posted by spacemom in : Spacemom , 1 comment so far

I will admit, I am not THAT vain. Really.

I am trying to work out to be healthy. I am trying to get to my goal weight to avoid the "weight gain of the midyears" as I hit my late 30s.

Only recently have I started to really pay attention to my skin. It started after Luna was born. A friend got talked into a Mary Kay visit. She wanted moral support, so a few of us went with her. I bought a few items and used them.

Slowly I discovered that I liked how my skin felt using the Mary Kay stuff. I have never been high on makeup, but I realized that I should start taking care of my skin. I am now using the right cleanser (feels nice) and a daily sunscreen (which I am good about since I BURN otherwise) and a light moisturizer. I am also using the "day/ night solutions" which help "reduce lines and wrinkles". Surprisingly, they do. I am very shocked how these products work. I like how they make me feel and they keep my face much clearer than it had been in the past.

I still don’t wear much makeup. If I can get eyeshadow (very subtle) and mascara on, I am in good shape. That’s about 3 times a week. But I am good to my skin care regimen. It it seems to be good for me.

I wonder if this means I am vain?

To all my friends back home… October 14, 2006

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Keep warm.
Bundle up.
Have a snowball fight.
Remember that it is fun to be in Buffalo!

PS. for the record, my sister is hoping to have power by Tuesday Or maybe Friday… Next week….

Daytime drama September 20, 2006

Posted by spacemom in : Life...otherwise, Spacemom, Home wreckers , add a comment

I 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.

a sad goodbye September 20, 2006

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To my co-worker, RB. I am so sad. Please let your daughter know we are thinking of her. To lose a child before you meet her is unthinkable, yet it happened.

I am sorry.

More on passwords September 8, 2006

Posted by spacemom in : Spacemom , 4 comments

So, I have set up a test blog over at wordpress. Check it out!
The advantages here:
1) I can put my password back up if I need to
2) I have 3 blogs to play with, one is for family and completely off of your guys radar. In fact, if you found it, you would need to uber secret password and username to get in, so that is completely out.
3) I have a great deal of flexibility with the design

The cons:
1) if I password protect, then only those people I invite come in. I’ve invited people who I read, but that’s kind of limiting
2) $90 a year.

Wordpress:
The advantages:
1) Free!
2) I think I can set more than 1 blog, but I don’t think I can password protect everything.
3) Free
4) I can password protect some posts.

The disadvantages
1) Heavy feel to it
2) Little flexibility in the design
3) Can’t just up an password protect this site, but I can allow any wordpress user in…but that gets tricky, I force people to become wordpress users…

There is a question of WHY do I have a password protected site?
This is easy, Jay is in a small field. If you google our last name and the telescope, well the first page of results are all Jay’s work.  I did google Nance and our telescope and I luck out because there is a scientist with the last name of Nance who does work with it. Yippie!

I want to protect him. And my girls.

In addition, I had a bad experience in the past. Read HERE for more. Basically she lied to several of my friends and I and actually went to a place where she impersonated someone via Yahoo and emailed things to another person (very high schoolish) and created a nasty scene. I even stopped going to one of my favorite parenting boards because I discovered she was screwing with me there….

I sometimes feel I am past that. But other times, I am worried that if I go live, she will find me and bug me again.

Until my year runs out, I’ll be posting on both sites, wordpress and here. But my decision  will depend on alot…

Thinking of password removal AGAIN September 7, 2006

Posted by spacemom in : Spacemom , 6 comments

I am thinking, AGAIN, of removing the password. But I think I will have to go back and edit all of the posts that mention Soleil and Luna by name. To do that, I need nicknames.
So….
anyone have suggestions?

At home, we call them Fruitcake (Soleil) and Fruitcake with nuts (Luna)

Somehow, that may get confusing.

Personalities:
S: outgoing, over friendly, afraid to trust the world if she thinks she will get hurt. Caring, will take care of anyone hurt, never shuts up
L: outgoing, will throw herself into a brick wall to see what will happen, caring, but not afraid to beat the crap out of her sister. Thinks she is older than she is…

Suggestions are welcome. I need help on this… Banner will change as well, but I think I’ll keep my name up there.

Lucky August 24, 2006

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I started the day exhausted after switch shifts with Jay when Luna decided to be Damien’s love child and scream for 2 hours last night. Soleil had nightmares about T-Rex (dino week at school) even though she agrees that we need a brain to move muscles and dino skeletons have neither.

My Shrink appointment was early, so I grabbed the T to get there. I ended up getting thick black grease on my calf and my skirt from the train. How? I have no clue. They are switching the token system out to something called "the Charlie Card", but the station I was starting from only took the Charlie Card and the station I was going to enter later only took tokens. Grrr.

I have three packages to mail today including my BRAND NEW GPS unit. The battery worked for 1 charge and now it charges,  but doesn’t work.

And I think of all of this and say "how lucky I am!"

Because yesterday I read a story in the NY Times about children as young as 5 and 6 working in the sex trade for money in sub-Saharan Africa.Children who need to smash rocks to dust and sell the dust to make cement for the wealthy who want pools and new houses in their country. Children whose parents are dead from AIDS and HIV and who fight daily to just live.

And I look at my house, my stuff, my greasy leg and say, "damn, I am lucky to live in a First World economy. I am lucky to raise my children where they can get an education despite the shape of their genitals, where they will have every chance to live to adulthood while living a childhood."

Yes, I am lucky today.
Damn lucky

That woman in the mirror August 3, 2006

Posted by spacemom in : Depression, Spacemom , 1 comment so far

I wonder. Who am I? And when I say that, I really mean it in a very different way than the question people have asked for centuries.

I have been researching my drug options for handling the depression. It is getting worse on this higher dose of lexapro. Well, maybe not worse, but certainly not much better. My self worth is close to being in the red. I am leaning towards the second drug, cymbalta.

So who am I? Am I the sad person who starts to berate herself over silly things? Or am I the bold person who is willing to stand up for herself when medicated and well? Am I fucking with my soul and my karma by taking medication that stabilizes my mood? Am I the person who hates physical tough to the point that when my daughter decides to kiss my arm (20 times in a row) I want to fling her into a wall? Or am I the mom who loves to hug and snuggle my kids?

At what point are we ourselves and at what point are we simply a chemical experiment?

Mommy Vs Mommy July 28, 2006

Posted by spacemom in : Spacemom , 4 comments

I have been thinking alot lately. Mostly about very negative things, but some positive. One thing that I have been thinking about is the worth in our American, first world society, of mothers. This was mostly inspired by something I read from Jen. However, Tertia had to go ahead and write something similar so now I feel like I am a big fat copycat.

Anyway, what is it about mothers that our culture has trouble with?
There are the mommy wars:
Battle #1: who is better, Stay at home mom or work out of the home mom?
Battle #2: The breast feeding wars: Breast is best or formula is ok?
Battle #3: Epidural? no meds? C-section? or no?

All of this is just bullshit, in my opinion, but it still gets to me.

I work out of the home, 4 days a week. I stayed home with Soleil for the first 16 weeks of her life. By week 8, I was ready to having a flying leap at a rolling doughnut. I am so not cut out to be a stay at home mom. My friend Becky. She is the perfect stay at home mom. She did a wonderful job with her kids, not going back to work until her youngest hit kindergarten. How cool is that? She was calm and relaxed (ha, I can see her laughing now) and handled the job of mom in a way that I never could.

We each took different paths, the ones that fit OUR lives. So why the hell do people need to say something? I wonder if it is something in that we need to be better than others. The American Dream always seems to be about being better. Better than what? I am not sure. But there always seems to be some materialism related to that dream.

So do some of the women who stay at home with their kids feel a need to put down others? Do some of the women who work out of the home feel the need to justify their time away by attacking those who don’t?

It seems like women in America spend a great deal of time criticizing others, when what we really need is support for each other.

We need to support those women who make the choices for themselves. Less mommy wars, more mommy nights out to discuss the issues that are relevant to us all: education, violence, the  entertainment industry and how these things will affect US and our families.

Sometimes, I wonder what women would do if we ran the country. Probably have "biggest dick" contests like the men do. Just in a different way…

Travel not so much July 19, 2006

Posted by spacemom in : Seeing the World Through Astronomy, Spacemom , 3 comments

Once upon a time, I was a homebody. I never liked to travel. Getting on an airplane made me hyperventilate.

Now, I miss travel.

Sure, we go lots of places, but not as much as we used to. Dr. Jay and I have a plan to see the world through astronomy. When I was 24, I spent a week in Chile. We had an observing run at Cerro Tololo and it was a blast! The food that was cooked was right out of 1970. We stayed in Santiago for a few days and then took an 8 hour bus ride to La Serana. Beautiful City. We even when down to the wharf a few nights to enjoy the local markets and the food.  I have been in the Andes. That is where the telescope is. Amazing to realize that I first saw the Pacific Ocean from Chile!

Next month, Dr. Jay is going to Prague. I was planning to go with him, but it is clear that Luna isn’t ready for that long of a trip. Instead, the grandparents (his side) are coming to stay for half of the time, then we go to Long Island. Dr. Jay will fly into JFK and meet us out on the Island. His brother has a house out in the Hamptons, so we will visit while the OTHER brother is staying at the house. We get a hotel (don’t get me started)

I miss travel. I have been to Corsica, Paris, San Diego, Victoria (Canada), Orlando, Huntsville, Tuscon, Seattle, DC, Baltimore, Atlanta, Boulder,Hawaii… all in the name of work. Cool? Yes. (We also went to Madrid as a honeymoon, where Dr. Jay continued on to a meeting in the Canaries)

Since having the kids, it is expected that I stay home more. Mostly because Dr. Jay has the PhD and does the research and I do the Master’s level work of busting ass. However, as the kids get older, I can see more travel in the future.

In November, I plan on going to Pasadena. There is a cool star meeting there and my parents have agreed to stay with the kids. I will leave Tuesday and return Friday. Okay, a short trip, but HEY! At least I will go!

In January, there is another AAS meeting is Seattle. I want to go. The kids may stay home,

In May, we have another trip to Hawaii. We are talking my parents into coming to that and to get them a room at the meeting rate (which is usually 1/3 of the regular rate). This would be a family trip!

In August, our nephew is having his Bar Mitzvah, so we are off to Seattle with the family again.

We are working on keeping travel up. Dr. Jay still has 3-4 times more trips than I do, but that’s okay. I can see that, as a family, we will do more travel as the kids grow. Next year? Busy, the year after? ITALY!

I think travel is one of the biggest things I miss from pre-kid life. But I love that the kids are learning how to travel with us. That is great!