A Secret In The Hand. Or Was That A Bird? Whatever.
Just when I wonder…”what oh what will I write about now?” the fabulous Everyday Mama comes up with a blog-hop that really makes me think! Because, I have shared so much here, are there really 25 things you DON’T know about me?
Digging as deep as I can…Here are (I hope I can get to 10, but trying for) 25 things you don’t know about me:
- Every other first born female in my family (going back generations) had twins. I am that ‘every-other’ generation and I am the first born female. I do not have twins. Although I did marry one!
- My first job was in a tropical fish store. I was 13 and I gave the wrong change. The guy called me a thief and the owner convinced him it was just a mistake. I cried. After that I just cleaned tanks.
- When we played ‘army’ in the neighborhood I always volunteered to be the nurse.
- In fourth grade I was teacher’s pet.
- In fifth grade I was ‘put up’ to sixth grade the first week of school. (yea, I skipped a grade)
- My dad taught me to ride a motorcycle at age 9. My first bike was a blue Honda 70.
- Even better, he taught me to bait a hook and fish at age 5.
- There is only one thing I hate about SoCal: The lack of river fishing. I need some rushing water. STAT.
- I went snowshoeing with a youth group in junior high through the Yosemite back country to a cabin way out in the woods. There was no electricity and we read Call Of The Wild out loud to each other until late in the night. It was the best night’s sleep I have ever had in my entire 48 years.
- I have seen many dead bodies through my work at hospitals over the years and I was okay with it.
- One time, though, it wasn’t okay and it wasn’t at work. Some day, maybe, I will tell that story.
- All I ever wanted to be growing up was a veterinarian.
- As an young adult, I only wanted to be in criminal justice.
- Now, I just want to be a vet again. Mostly, because I need one and can’t afford it.
- I worked as a ‘scab’ during the grocery strike. It was great money and we really needed it. But 70 hours a week isn’t something I could have sustained for long, so I was glad when it was over.
- I took three years of French in high school, was pretty fluent and wanted to be an exchange student my senior year. I can’t remember a lick of it now.
- I was president of the Science Club and in the spirit club, at the same time (I was a geek/popular chick blend–I belonged everywhere and nowhere).
- I played a GREAT right wing in PAL soccer.
- I split my leg open in a motorcycle accident at 14. I wasn’t driving, a friend of my mom was and we went over a bump. I flew off and hit a tree.
- I went to an emergency room in a teeny tiny town and got sewn up by what I am sure was an 18 year old crazy kid posing as a doctor.
- Three days later I had a red line running up my leg. After that I was put in isolation and my wound was left open to heal from the inside out. I had 17 different kinds of infection, including staff.
- I had cosmetic surgery at 16 and 18 to try and remove the scar.
- I still adore my husband. Even though we have been together since I was 13 and I am now 48. Or despite that fact.
- My dad bought us a pony named Chocolate when I was 15. He was a mean, mean pony who kicked and bit. He also ran me into a tree. His name should have been Houdini, because he was an expert at escape.
- Chocolate did not live with us for long.
OH wow, I did it! I am so proud of myself! If you want to challenge yourself too, head on over to EverydayMama’s bloghop! The more the merrier.
I Just Want To Go Back To Bed
You know it’s going to be a bad day when……
- You wake up to discover it is Friday, not Saturday
- You’re about halfway to work, you glance in the rearview mirror and realize you put on the ‘white’ mascara base but forgot the mascara
- You get to work pour your cereal into a bowl and find you left the milk at home
- You wake up with a headache and two hours later it’s still with you
BlogHer recap post to come soon. Possibly soon. Maybe soon-ish.
Renegades is a better word. It implies a spirit of adventure.
The doctor tried to break the news gently. She promises that in time I will overcome their careless disregard of consequences. That my sense of abandonment will dwindle. The ugly truth? My hormones up and left me. They flew the coop without even a kiss goodbye. Snuck off in the dead of night, leaving only a few stragglers. They didn’t warn me. They gave no notice of their intentions. Like deserters who knew we were going to lose the battle, they absconded while their general looked the other way.
Perhaps I knew deep inside, because I’ve been crying lately. I don’t know why I cry. Perhaps it’s their legacy: Tears for no reason. Happy tears, sad tears; random and unexpected tears at any given moment. That is not all they left behind, those hormonal cop-outs. There is the 30 pound weight gain in two months, a fatigue as deep and dark as the Marian Trench, a firestorm of evil probiotics wreaking havoc in my gut, and a vitamin D deficiency that I am sure is degenerating my bones as we speak. Farewell gifts I could do without.
I thought I had a few years left. Or, perhaps, I thought I was younger than I am. Years have a way of sneaking up on a person. One day you are cuddling babies, the next surviving teenagers, then one morning you wake up and you’re a grandmother. Time and hormones are stealthy like that: creeping up on you slowly, distracting you with their might, deceptively lingering only to vanish without warning.
I’ll tell you what I am going to do:
I am firing my ovaries.
Food Is The Most Primitive Form Of Comfort
I fell off the WW wagon. Not sure if I can get back on. In the meanwhile, I’ve been riding (exercise!), working (also exercise of a sort) and caring for Calypso (definitely exercise-ever walked and washed a 900 pound dog?). I’ve been busy, busy, busy and trying to find quick and easy but tasty dinners to fit into my busy schedule. Tonight I made something everyone loved. It was quick and easy and, in my opinion, full of excellent flavor. Also? If you are a vegetarian, it’s vegetarian! (Bonus points for being pretty damned inexpensive).
4oz angel hair pasta
18-25 slices baguette, about 1/4″ thick
2 TBL butter, melted
10-oz alfredo pasta sauce (the refrigerated stuff)3/4 C shredded swiss cheese 1TBL Basil herb blend (the stuff in the squeeze bottle in the produce section) 3 roma tomatoes, chopped 2Tbl parmesan cheese (straight out of the shaker)
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cook and drain pasta. While pasta is cooking, brush bread with butter. Line a 9″ pie pan with bread (butter side up), slightly overlapping. Bake bread 10 mins or until brown. Remove from oven and reduce temp to 350. Stir swiss cheese, alfredo sauce and basil blend together with hot (drained) pasta. Spoon onto baked bread crust. Top with tomatoes and then parmesan cheese (I took the pic before I put on the parmesan cheese, whoops). Bake 15-20 minutes and let stand 5 minutes before cutting (although some people couldn’t wait).
Bon appetit!
A moment in my tummy… a lifetime in my heart
There are people out there who will find me absurd when I proclaim what I am about to. There are some who will think I am spoiled and ungrateful; crazy, insane, or brainless. Some may be hurt aggrieved due to their own struggles and believe I am not grateful, although I know I am. Those who have never experienced it (and are happiy that way), may find me laughable.
I can’t change my desires. My yearning. My hankering. The daily/nightly burning craving.
To have a baby.
Not ’just’ to have a child. Although that is the real desire. But I also covet the pregnancy days. The feeling of growth within my body. The nurturing of innocent life. The muscle cramps, The weight gain. The lumbering walk. The quickening. The kicks and rolls.
But yes, end run game, I want to have another baby of my own. Another child. A thought that had been gone for years. A possibility that has been gone for years. Yet the vision reappears and persists.
Why this overwhelming need? I have grandchildren for heaven’s sake! Yet, adorable and wonderful as they are? They are not mine alone. Completely and dependently mine. The first face they see in the morning and the last at night. All mistakes and accomplishments, of me and by me.
Readers my age, is this normal? Am I doomed to a life of wishing and wanting another baby of my own? Or is this some kind of midlife crisis breeder style? Men get cars and moms yearn for babies in their wombs? More importantly…how do I make it go away? Obviously, holding other’s babies (even my own grandbabies) isn’t going to work: I want one of my own!!!! And knowing it is a physical impossibility is having not one tiny bit of effect on my infatuation with wanting to be pregnant!
Don’t get me wrong…I am not sad about it. I dealt with that years ago. This just seems to be some kind of overwhelming want to gestate and give birth and raise a baby. I’ve lost it. Obviously.
Hormones? Insanity? I bet if someone would loan me a baby for a month I would get over it. Volunteers?
Fantastic Friday
There is so much to catch up with on here. So much I want to share. I hope to have some time this weekend to get some of it done!
But I will leave you with the best news of 2011, so far:
Today I was offered and accepted a permanent job with my company. It was longer in coming than they had said, but well worth the wait. I may have pretended to play hard to get a bit…they offered me $6,000 more per year than they originally said they were going to.
Gonna pop some bubbly tonight!
A closed mouth catches no flies
I do think it is possible that the world has gone overboard in the “politically correct” department. Sometimes people get really carried away, HOWEVER, I also strongly believe in people closing their mouths and THINKING before they release the stupid thoughts in their minds.
As my mother always said, “If you don’t have nothin’ nice to say, don’t say nothin’ at all.” If more people would heed this sage advise the world (at least mine) would be a happier place. One in which I would never have to know these things were said…..
A parent at Ladybug’s elementary school (during a planning meeting for the school Harvest Festival with all the room mothers) said to NannyGoat:
“Who is your child’s teacher? What grade?” “Mrs. X, K and 1st combined” “Combined? I’ve never heard of such a thing at this school.” “It’s the Special Day class.” ”Oh! So the ‘special’ kids are coming to this event? How great that they can join all the regular kids.”Nanny was also at the planning of a school cultural event. Each group had a different country and they had to have several booths of different arts/crafts/food etc. set up for that country. Nan’s group got Japan. One of the parents began their meeting by smugly informing everyone that she had arranged for a local restaurant to supply chop sticks and a fortune cookie for every student. One of the other parents (of Asian descent) said to that parent: “That is wonderful that you already did that. I think the chopsticks will be great and we can use those. But the fortune cookies are actually a Chinese tradition, not Japanese.” To which Ms. Smug actually replied: “China. Japan. Whatever. They are both Asian, right?”
And lastly, while Nanny is arranging the teacher requested Halloween party (she is the room mother poor thing), she sends an email to each parent informing them the cost for each student (food and supplies aren’t free, you know). She receives an email back from one of the parents that states: “We do not celebrate Halloween, we celebrate All Saint’s Day. Therefore, I will not be contributing to this event. However, I will allow my son to attend the party, so he doesn’t feel left out from the rest of the class.”
WHAT? You are going to allow your child to go eat and party with the kids while everyone else pays???
It’s Monday. Had to get this off my chest…
Daydreaming At Night
I often have trouble falling asleep. My body is exhausted, but my brain just won’t stop. Over the years I found that if I just ‘put out’ of my mind whatever was bothering me, I could eventually get some rest. The problem being that my brain needed something to distract itself. So years and years ago, I started redecorating my house. In my head. Since then we’ve moved, the house I was decorating in my head burned down and things have changed. So the old ‘renovations’ just don’t work anymore. With all that has been going on in my life the last few years, I forgot how to calm myself to sleep.
Lately worrying has notched up again; about stuff going on like Presto and the fact that I still don’t have a job and no one is breaking down my door to give me one. Keep in mind, my daydream decorating was always something achievable, not the kind of renovations I would do if I won the lottery. So I’ve started redecorating again. In this house, in my head. But now with the internet (and a self inflicted HGTV addiction), I can get real ideas. And maybe, someday, start to bring them to life.
I am going to start in the living room, just a basic makeover. Starting with a couch that is new and wasn’t once in the entry of my old work, a chaise with some fabulous table lamps (I’ve always dreamed of lying around all day on a chaise while reading books), a big flat screen television mounted on the wall so I have more room for seating (I have one of those ‘old fashioned TVs that takes up four square feet for only 34″ of screen), and a special area rug because the rugs always make a difference in every makeover show I see. I’ve been looking around (you know, in case I do win the lottery) and I wanted to share some of the ones I fell in love with. I found all these at Overstock because I have the feeling my chances of winning the lottery will depend on me actually buying a ticket….and well, they have great prices and someday maybe I’ll have a job again.
Honestly, doesn’t it look great so far? Perhaps I should try out to be the next DesignStar, what do you think?
Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending
Shhh, there is a baby asleep in my bed. I got to see the newest addition yesterday in the NICU. He is tiny, but doing well. His breathing is doing great, they took him off the vent, then put him on a cannula and by yesterday morn his ABGs were so good they were thinking about talking that off too. They are considering his gestational age at 30 weeks (so the neonatologist was wrong in her hopes that he was 32-33). So the doc says consider her due date (Aug 26th) as the date he may get to come home. It could be earlier, but we won’t know for some time. The issue now will be feeding. Apparently babies this young aren’t quite ready for food. The have started a pic line and a feeding tube. They will begin with just some sugar water and over the next few weeks start introducing some proteins/food slowly. There is some risk he may react to the food, not be able to tolerate it, or develop an infection. The doc says the NICU is a roller coaster ride and right now we are on the kiddie ride, but at any moment we could end up at the top of a big drop and not know how we got there. He took the pacifier and sucked a few times, which is a very good sign. Funny aside: the NICU doc recognized me as he was RolyPoly’s NICU doc in April and he remembered RolyPoly and asked how he was doing. I guess you could say I am getting to be the NICU Grama-expert. Not a great title, but I’ll take what I can get. Mom recovered very quickly and is doing pretty well. Still getting a little magnesium for her HBP, but otherwise great. Except she really wanted to go see little “Presto”. Thanks to Anna for his nickname, because it really was ‘hey, you are going to have a baby in a few weeks and then “Presto”: You are having a baby right now!’ I am not sure (because I have been babysitting RolyPoly this morning), but I think SusyQ was going to be allowed to try and get up to walk a bit last night and visit Presto in the NICU. Hope that went well.
In the meanwhile, I need to get back to 4th of July aprons or it will be November before they are done and what a waste that will be. Sometimes life throws punches at me and I can deflect them, sometimes they land a good blow. I just take it as best I can. The Universe sent me this note this morning and I am trying to take it to heart:
Actually, Vixen, it’s easier to accept others, than to change them. It’s wiser to understand them, than to get angry.
And most of the time, it’s more fun to love ‘em, than to leave ‘em.
Your call,
The Universe
Have a wonderful Thursday and enjoy your loved ones. Sometimes it’s not easy, but it is always worth it in the end.
A Little Laid Up
So you may have heard, if you follow me on twitter, that I fell off a horse. Of course, looking at the lack of posts on this blog you may have thought I fell of the the planet, but no; it was just a horse.
Long story short (or as short as possible): We went on our first trail ride last Tuesday (or two tuesdays ago,whatever) and I really enjoyed the trials out there. My lovely horse, Rain, decided that since she had not been ridden since last DECEMBER that about 5 miles out she was tired and wanted to go home. I must note at this time, she was not difficult about it at all and although kept letting me know she’d like to turn around and head for home she never did not respond right back to my correction. She did exactly what I told her to do. However, the trainer thought that maybe she should ride Rain back to “teach her a lesson.” At the time it didn’t sound like a bad idea, the trainer said her horse was “super gentle and well behaved”. Which he was. He also had “sore feet” (which I didn’t know about at the time) and is a huge stumbler. I hadn’t been on him more than two minutes when he tripped in a little culvert. According to an eye witness (Bear), I did a valiant job of catching myself and re-seating my arse where it belonged from the initial stumble. Unfortunately for me, Caspar decided immediately after the stumble (or during, it’s kinda blurry), to leap out of the culvert. I didn’t feel the leap coming and so I guess you can say he went forward and I forgot to follow. With the horse no longer beneath me, I had no where to go but down. Although it did not happen in slow motion like on tv, I did have a split second to think that if I landed flat on my derrier I may undo any success of my repaired herniated disc, so I tucked my knees up towards my chest and took the brunt of the landing on my mid back. This immediately resulted in a complete lack of oxygen in my lungs and a quite overwhelming pain around my entire middle section. Although all my extremities moved when I asked them to, they did refuse to respond to my brain’s requests to roll over and stand up for at least 10 minutes (during which Bear freaked out and yelled “ARE YOU OKAY?!” at me over and over). Eventually, I stood and I knew it was too far to walk out, so I hopped up onto Bear’s horse (it was closest and shortest and about all I could accomplish at the time). All I wanted to do was get back to the ranch. Bear’s horse responds much better to her than me (okay it responds to me NOT AT ALL) and wanted to trot home and wouldn’t stop. After a few miles (tears pouring from my eyes), the damned beast slowed enough for me to bail off its back and I walked the rest of the way home. From now on I am sticking to my own horse, who I know and trust. No more strange horses for me.
Falling off a horse is not a pleasant experience and my body took more lumps, bumps, bruises and general abuse that it really would care too. And recuperation time is slow going. I have good days and bad days. I do believe my tailbone is broken, a painful situation I had to deal with when my 10-pound MacDougal was expelled from my body at birth and one I had hoped to never experience again.
Mostly the middle of my back took the brunt of my collision with the ground from high above and is taking its very sweet time overcoming its soreness. I ice and heat several times a day and I think I am progressing very well. Not as well as a 20-year old might, but hey I wouldn’t give up my 47 years of wisdom for a 20 year old body at all!
Many of you have already left me (by that I mean my blog) and moved on to more writer-ly, posting bloggers and I totally understand. I hope in the next few weeks/months to draw you all back in with my biting wit, sunny sarcasm, boring lifestyle and, of course, more pictures of my beautiful grandchildren.
PS: I want you all to know that I have been back up on the back of my horse, Rain. We are working very slowly and only in the arena ring for now, but it went very well.
Find the Vixen
For Realz
Spread The Frenzy
Barked Back