Stormy Weather

A huge storm rolled through the state on Friday.    Sheet rain, hail, and snow...although if we got any snow here in the valley, I totally missed it.

The storm was severe enough that we ended up cancelling a trip to go visit Stacy down south.  Fear that the pass through the grapevine would be closed due to the snow.  I was pretty disappointed because I haven't been down there in forever...since before Roger and I got married.  And the last time I saw Stacy, Kaelyn was just a couple of months old. 

But, once the disappointment wore off and the storm clouds passed through, it ended up being a beautiful weekend...even if a little cold.  We took advantage of this and moved our new patio furniture out back on Friday night.  Though we didn't use it because it was too nippy for me...even by the fireplace.  Instead, we enjoyed some quiet time inside and even got a chance to sleep in a little on Sunday.  A couple of shopping trips rounded out our weekend.  All in all, I can't complain.

I bought the new Weight Watchers Cookbook.  It has some nice things in it, but the truth is, I'll never follow a recipe.  It's impossible.  I will look through my cookbooks or online for inspiration and then change the recipe so completely that it's funny to even claim I used one.  A good example of how I work is what happened on Saturday.  As I was watching a show on the Food Network, I decided to browse online to see if I could find anything interesting to try making for dinner.  In the end, I settled on a rack of lamb.  It looked delicious!

We went shopping, but I didn't find any lamb that looked appealing enough to spend $12/lb on, so instead we got a good looking round roast.  The intent was that I would follow the lamb recipe on the roast.  The show I had watched that morning actually was about cooking pot roast, and so, at the last minute, I scrapped the lamp recipe completely in favor of that one.  But, it was on tv that morning, and I was way too lazy to look anything up online.  I've made post roast no less than 100 times and I have my own way of doing it, but I wanted to do something different.  I tried to remember everything about the roast on the show and in the end, actually wrote an entirely different recipe that blows anything I've ever tasted before out of the water!  Delicious!  Last night we added some egg noodles to the pot and it was heaven.  Kaelyn ate so much of it...for once, she didn't even give any to Buckeye.  Made me so happy!

I have an intersting week ahead of me.  Today is supposed to be my day off, but I'm actually going to go in for a few hours around lunchtime.  Not thrilled with it, but don't hate it as much as I would have thought. 

Until next time...

Dang All These Nice People!

I’ve always been pretty good at compartmentalizing my life. I separate work and family. I don’t like to socialize with co-workers outside of work functions. I’m friendly with my neighbors, but don’t go on vacations with them, etc.


I’m not sure why I’m this way. Whether it’s because I’m extraordinarily bad at separating emotions from business decisions, focusing on work if I’m worried about someone, or something else entirely, I’ve just never been one to intermingle the different aspects of my life.

I’m not even exactly sure when this started. In high school, I played Volleyball and loved it. Obviously, there was camaraderie with the team and I loved them like sisters. But my best friends had nothing to do with Volleyball. I spent more time with my teammates than anyone. I was even in two of their weddings. But the friends I was most emotionally wrapped in were not on the team. I never even had a party where I invited both my teammates and my other school friends. They were always separate.

In the Air Force, separating work from my social life was hard. Living overseas and several deployments really limited my opportunities to make friends that weren’t also in the AF. And being a Civil Engineer, I, at some point or another in my career, worked with just about everyone. I tended to get past this by forming close relationships with people outside of my squadron. People I had other things in common with, such as church, or hiking groups, or anything besides me having to see them at work all the time. But, regardless, I worked with some pretty great people at times. And I couldn’t help but genuinely like some of them. Still, if I got into a situation where I was too close, or where too much intimacy formed, I would get uncomfortable and shut down. I maintained a cool distance from most of them. I would rather my coworkers believe that I wasn’t all that friendly, than violate my own need (no matter how selfish) to not be too close to any of them. To this day, I’m happy with the decisions I made. My job was often hard and there’s no way I could have enjoyed what I was doing, or fully focused on it, if I had to also maintain close friendships.

As a civilian, things continue to get murkier for me. I have several friends in completely different career fields. I live in a pretty populated place with plenty of opportunities to put everyone I know if the neat little boxes I create for them. The problem is that people are just way too nice. What starts out as, what I feel, is someone forcing their friendship on me, turns into me having real feelings and really caring for them. I know I’m sounding pretty cold right now, but I’ve never had a problem, before now, just saying I have work friends and I have real friends. The two shall never meet!

Especially now, all someone has to do is ask me about Kaelyn and I’m sucked right in. I love talking about her! And it’s the quickest way for me to forget all my personal “rules” and just dive right in to a detailed conversation about things that have nothing to do with work. I don’t have many friends with kids…at least young kids. So, when someone at work offers me that connection, I jump right in. Then I realize something I was hoping I’d never have to. These are great people, who have a lot to offer a friendship. Now, it’s too late. I have more than just “work friends”, I have “friends at work.” It goes against everything I’ve ever believed in. But, there’s nothing I can do about it.



I like them all to darned much!!

The Cat is Allergic to The Dog

The cat is allergic to the dog.


Not really…but that’s what it seems like. She just won’t stop sneezing. She’s been sneezing since before Buckeye came to live with us and actually seemed better for a while, but it’s kicked into high gear again. She wheezes and snores. And it does seem worse when she’s around the dog.

I’m a terrible person, because I haven’t taken her to the vet yet. I’m sure she needs an antibiotic of some sort. She’s energetic, eats well, and seems to be normal except for the sneezing. And I know that even though she doesn’t act like she feels bad, cats are instinctive fakers when it comes to acting healthy.

So, that’s my goal this week. Take poor Itty to the vet.

Our weekend was pretty good, even though it didn’t start out that way. I was in a pretty horrible mood on Saturday. And while I have my suspicions, I don’t really know why. Kaelyn spilled my coffee on my new area rug in the family room. Buckeye was more excitable that usual, and Itty felt the need, for some reason, to sit behind me on the couch and sneeze in my face. Luckily, I got to escape for a few minutes to get my eyebrows waxed and by the time I got home, everyone had calmed down considerably…including me. We were pretty bored so we went to the mall…just like teenagers. We don’t know what to do, so let’s hang out at the mall.

It was really crowded for some reason…that has to be a good sign for the economy.

That night, after Kaelyn went to bed, Roger brought me tequila shots. I have to say that did help elevate my mood! Which was his goal…so it worked beautifully.

I was better the rest of the weekend. Got to relax with Kaelyn on Sunday while Roger went to install some thermostats at a friend’s house. We repeated our Saturday routine on Monday, except we went to my favorite kitchen store, Sur La Table! Ate lunch at a new favorite restaurant, then went shopping for a new coffee table. We didn’t find the coffee table, but we did find the swivel rocker chairs we’ve been looking for, for our back patio. Made the trip worth it!

I’m hoping for a relatively quiet week. I think it’s going to rain later…Oh spring, where are you! You’ve peeked through a few times, but when will you be here to stay?

Not much else to write about, so I’ll sign off for now…

"Flex" Day

I had my first flex day on Monday.  Valentines Day.  Yeah!

We spent most of it at the Development Clinic with Kaelyn.  This is a program she was automatically enrolled in at birth because she was premature.  We are mandated to go three times and this was our second visit.  Basically, they play with her for a while and do a neurological exam to make sure that she is developing as expected and won't need additional therapy.  It's an early intervention program.  It makes me nervous to go, but I can also see the good in it.  The good thing, is that Kaelyn is doing so well.  More than she's expected to do for a baby her age that was born at term.  We go one more time in November where they will guage how well she is talking.  Of course, she is already talking very well, so I don't expect that visit will be much of a problem either.

During the visit, after the play session with the PT, the nurse came and got us for the neurological exam.  Of course, Kaelyn wanted to walk to the next room, so I grabbed her things and followed her.  In the hallway was a set of stairs that formed a pyramid.  Three going up and three going down.  These are bigger than a regular step, but not so big that it didn't tempt Kaelyn to go climb.  I knew immediately that she would try, so I called out to her to come with the rest of us.  The nurse said that Kaelyn was not ready to climb those stairs yet, and the PT said that she had not asked Kaelyn to try because she was still too small.  I laughed.  Kaelyn climbs all the way up and back down our stairs at home.  She can get on top of anything.  And, as if to prove the point herself, she climbed right on top of those stairs and down the other side!

As expected, the neurological exam showed that everything was normal.  We left there in pretty high spirits then went to meet Vickie for lunch.  After lunch, we came home for some much needed naps and pretty much relaxed the rest of the day.  Since it was Valentine's Day, we decided to watch a movie together after Kaelyn went to bed that night.  I acted like this was a special Valentine's night, even though neither Roger nor I are big into the day. After a while I realized that it was no different than every other night we hang out together.  And that's what makes it so great.

Moving Sucks

I’ve moved so many times in my life, I don’t even bother trying to remember the actual number. All of my moves in my adult years have been done solo. As a matter of fact, moving Roger into my house, was the first time I ever moved with another person…and that doesn’t even really count, considering I didn’t technically move anywhere.


I’m a bit over the top when it comes to moving. Things have to be packed in such a way that unpacking them is easy. Boxes have to be labeled consistently. Even in the military where they pack for you, I was always making sure it was done to my standards. I unpack everything the same day I move into a new place. I will stay up all night getting the furniture placed right and all the boxes unpacked. In other words, it’s probably been a good thing that I’ve never had someone move with me, because I would certainly drive them to want to move out as quickly as possible!

(We are not moving)

Getting the floors in the house replaced has been kind of like moving. We basically had to pack up most of our rooms and move everything out. So, for the first time, Roger got to experience a little bit of how wacky I can be. (I warned him, but it’s never the same as actually experiencing it). The move out wasn’t that bad. We had friends help us and the guys just sort of moved the furniture out before I could say too much about it. My friend, Klara, helped me with the little things…books, candles, etc. That wasn’t too bad either, because I didn’t have a lot of junk to go through, so since we went room by room, it went quickly and was packed pretty well. I will admit, though, that once everything was moved to the garage, I went back and moved some of the boxes around so that I could move them back in the house in the correct order.

Tuesday, after work, I rushed home from Weight Watchers (much later than I normally am) eager to get a quick hour in with Kaelyn before she went to bed and get to work on moving everything back in. First, I was overcome with how gorgeous the floors looked…a feeling that was quickly replaced with anxiety of all the dust that was covering absolutely everything. I quickly started telling Roger the plan. Dust the house now, then start bringing in the furniture…dusting each piece as we go. Finally, we’ll move in the boxes, unpack them, and put the boxes back in the garage immediately.

He just stared at me. In some ways overwhelmed by my (over)excitement, but mostly not wanting to give me the bad news.

We couldn’t move back in. The glue on the tack strips still had to dry. That included the stairs. We had to wait another day.

This news did not make me happy. I didn’t want to spend another night confined to our bedroom and not have full use of the kitchen. At least Kaelyn was able to go back to her own room, but the rest of them…right there with us!

To make things better, Roger promised that after work on Wednesday we would put everything back. We would follow my plan and he wouldn’t complain about it at all. I accepted this.



Until….

I got a call on Wednesday morning. Roger had several jobs in San Jose. He was with his boss and his boss thought it would be better for them to travel there, spend the night, and get them all done at once. And while this makes perfect sense, and something I would normally accept…it wasn’t ok with me that it was completely at the last minute. Who would wait until someone reports to work to tell them they have to travel for a few days? Roger said they would likely be gone until Friday morning.

And once I got over the fact that I had to cancel my own work trip to Reno to accommodate this, it occurred to me that if I needed help moving back into our house, I’d have to wait two more days!

But, not to be deterred, I remembered that I’ve moved so many times by myself, that there was no reason why I couldn’t do it again.

Roger didn’t get to experience, first hand, how “focused” I get when it comes to moving and unpacking. But, in the end, it was probably better for both of us, that I did the move alone. I could focus without the guilt of making someone I love keep an insane timeline…just to accommodate my neuroses.

So, in the end, the house is back to normal. I am sore and sleep deprived. We are shopping for area rugs this weekend, and Roger is coming back tonight! One night early :)

Chaos

Anyone who knows me, even semi-well, knows I don’t function well in chaos and disorder. Even when I mentally prepare for it, I can’t seem to do it.


(Sidenote: I seem to function well under pressure. I’ve been in more than one natural disaster and military operation where chaos and disorder was the norm. I do well in that. But when everything is calm again, I need things to be orderly. It just stresses me out otherwise.)

I mentioned yesterday that we are having new floors put in our house. I’m so happy about this. I’ve wanted these floors since buying the house five and a half years ago. The guys working yesterday did an amazing job. The floors are beautiful! And they are working pretty fast. Before they left last night (at 6:30 pm), they said they want to finish today. I would love that!

But, the house is a disaster. As we were packing up and moving out Sunday night, I kept telling myself that this was temporary and necessary. Only a few days and everything would be back to normal…only better. Luckily, I can come to work as they are working. Poor Roger is home dealing with the installers and keeping a 16 month old entertained and out of the way. He does have it worse. But chaos and disorder also doesn’t affect him the way it does me.

I was so excited to come home from work yesterday. Roger had sent me pictures throughout the day of the demolition and the progress. I thought I was mentally ok with how everything would look….but I wasn’t. The house is just a mess! Our garage is packed to the brim with our furniture and the workers’ tools. Kaelyn’s room is full of flooring (she has the most floor space), and our kitchen is holding overflow furniture. As a matter of fact our kitchen is only accessible as far as the coffee pot (which we get to by walking out or bedroom, through our patio, and in through the back door.) And the dust! Oh, the dust. The house was dust free for maybe 24 hours. Now, we have to dust everything!

Last night and this morning, were both stressful, to put it mildly. The only room we can really use is the master bedroom, which also has some extra end tables, the dog crate, and a lot of Kaelyn’s toys. All things that normally aren’t there. We had our family time piled on our bed last night. Something I enjoy immensely on Saturday mornings, but not as I’m winding down for the night. And not having a time when everyone goes to their respective spaces (because ours is the only one we have), just increased the anxiety.

I didn’t sleep well, but woke up with renewed energy. Because today, it will be finished! I’m going back to Weight Watchers after work and will be home late. But, once Kae is in bed, I can start putting the house back together again. I will stay up all night if I have to. I will be tired, but again, it will be such a good tired!

Another Super Bowl Party

There are few things in this life that I enjoy more than having people over. I get so much joy out of friends and family enjoying our home. Even through all the stress of getting the house cleaned, when I have a dog, cat, husband and toddler making a mess behind me, doing the shopping, and cooking the food, it’s all worth it to watch people truly have a good time when they come over. And to me, it’s what a house is good for…sharing it with others. I don’t think I can truly appreciate a place if I couldn’t see it through the eyes of people who don’t live there.


Roger and I have been so busy lately that our annual Super Bowl party seemed to sneak up on us out of nowhere. We spent all day Saturday preparing for it. Cleaning up the yard so we can take advantage of the awesome weather we’re having now, prepping the meat for the grill, making potato salad, making barbeque sauce, and cleaning up the house, had us exhausted. We (or at least Roger) stayed up pretty late. But, it was all worth it in the end. We managed to get the food cooked in time to actually enjoy our own party, and though I still don’t know who was actually playing the Super Bowl, I would call the party a huge success.

We’re getting bamboo floors installed today. I can’t wait to go home and see it! It was nice not having to worry about spilling things on the carpet yesterday and even nicer that some friends stayed after the party to help us clear everything out of the house. It was another late night, but it would have been even later if we didn’t have such wonderful friends. This morning, I’m tired, but it’s a good tired.

Farm Fresh Vegetables

This post is going in my new blog with actual links.

Last week, I decided to try something new and ordered fresh vegetables online. I researched several places and in the end settled on Farm Fresh to You. They are a bay area farm that specializes in organic produce.


I chose Farm Fresh because it offers the widest variety of choices. You have the ability to list out fruits and vegetables that you absolutely don’t ever want to see in your box, can adjust the size of the box, and the frequency of delivery. There are also fruit only or vegetable only choices and even a “no cook” box for those that don’t cook or don’t have time to cook.

I ended up ordering the regular size box ($31.50) to be delivered every other week….mainly because the website suggested this for a couple or small family. The $31.50 includes the delivery charge. For those of you (if you are like me) that need to plan your meals ahead or shop on the weekends, you can look up what will be in your box on the weekend before it’s delivered. I wasn’t aware of this feature when I first ordered, but was thrilled to find it when I looked up my order several days later! It also included direct links to storage suggestions and recipes for each of the fruits and vegetables on my list.

My box arrived yesterday and included the following:

Apples, Tangelos, Tangerines, Red onions, green onions, lettuce, kale, collard greens, cauliflower, carrots, and beets. If I had ordered a week earlier, my first box would have included mushrooms and chard (hope to see these again in my next shipment). It does not surprise me that in the winter I would see more leafy greens, onions, and beets in the box, since that is what’s growing now. I’m really looking forward to seeing what we get in the spring and summer months!

I did a quick price check on the produce I received and if I had purchased these at a farmers market, I could have gotten them for a lot less. If you have access to get to one of these on a regular basis and the time to go, then that would be a better choice. But, if I were to purchase all these from the organic produce section in Raley’s (I love this store), then the price is actually pretty comparable.

The main advantage to getting vegetables this way is that it forces me to be more creative when it comes to feeding my family. I’m not a picky eater and so far (knocking on wood), neither is my daughter. But my husband is…or at least he’s not that adventurous. It’s easy to get stuck in a rut when it comes to meals…especially when it comes to vegetables. Unless we get something we absolutely hate, my plan is to take what I get and come up with easy, healthy recipes that incorporate that. The hope is that we’ll end up with new, healthy dishes that we otherwise wouldn’t have tried.

The second advantage is the time savings, which for me, as a working mother, is huge! A trip to the grocery store can easily take an hour, if not more. And to keep fresh fruits and vegetables in the house, those trips need to be fairly often (at least once a week). We already make bigger trips to places like Costco or Sam’s Club to buy our meats and non-perishable items. We invested in a freezer to keep in the garage and a very simple vacuum sealer. This way, we can buy the large, bulky meats, and separate them into family size portions. This takes some extra time on shopping day, but saves us money and decreases the number of trips we need to take. Plus, we can keep a good variety of things in the house this way.

So, with the meat, rice, pasta and canned goods taken care of and now, the fresh fruits and vegetables being delivered directly to our house, the grocery shopping is pretty much done. Making a weekly pit stop for milk and eggs, if I do it right, can take as little as five or ten minutes and can happen on my way home from work. The time savings equals a lifetime for me!

Speaking of eggs…I got an email from Farm Fresh this morning that said they are adding egg delivery to their service. The eggs come from a neighboring farm and you can get either free range eggs for $7/dozen or cage free eggs for $6/dozen. At first, I was a little excited at the possibility of farm fresh eggs being added to my box, but I do think it’s a little pricey and have decided against it. Unless getting free range or cage free is the most important thing when it comes to buying eggs, I say it’s not worth the extra cost.

Bedtime Routine

I'm the one that usually puts Kaelyn down for the night.  It's my time to spend some quality one on one time with her and I selfishly take it.  Roger has never complained about it.  He get's his own time with her in other ways.

It used to be that whenever I reached out for Kaelyn (and many times that I don't), she would eagerly come to me.  As we walked towards the stairs, she'd turn to Roger and yell out "Bye bye Dada!"  She loved the reaction she would get when she said those words. 

Our routine takes a while.  I take her to her room and change her.  We tickle and practice the parts or our faces.  She shows me her feet and how she can get the baby wipes out of the container by herself.  After that, we sit in the glider and I read her a book.  She leans into me and turns the pages before I'm ready for her to.  Her hair always smells like baby shampoo.  I love this smell.  When I'm 100 years old I'll remember that smell.  It will probably fill the air when I pass this world and move on to the next.

After the book, I sit her in her crib.  She has a precious moments doll that when you squeeze the tummy says a little prayer:

Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
May angels watch me through the night
And keep me in their Blessed sight - Amen.

We always say this prayer.  I refuse to let her go to bed without it.  I have this irrational fear that if we don't pray, something could happen to her.  It's crazy, but it's how I feel. 

I kiss Kaelyn good night and she kisses me back.  I lay her down.  She used to do this, too, without protest, but these days she just rolls over and sits back up.  I have to lay her down a few times before she'll stay.  I turn on her baby beethoven cd, turn off the light, and close her door.  I can hear her wimper.  Not really cry, but not really accept bedtime either.  Usually within five minutes she's quiet.

Lately, Kaelyn has caught on to bedtime.  I don't even have to say it anymore.  If it's within 10 minutes of her normal bedtime, she knows.  As things wind down for the night, she normally gets a bit more cranky.  She doesn't find Buckeye as amusing.  If Roger is in between her and wherever she wants to go, climbing over him comes with some whining.  Roger and I are normally sitting on the floor with her during this time.  Talking to each other, but mostly playing with her.  For the last week or so, Kaelyn has started snuggling up to Roger.  As her bedtime nears, she grabs a toy or a book, then sits, and eventually lies in his lap.  She'll look up at him and show him whatever she's playing with and blow him kisses.  It's sweet to watch and Roger just loves it.

But, when I stand up things change.  Where she used to reach out to me, now she cries.  She knows I'm going to take her to bed and she does not want to go.  She turns and runs away, or presses up against Roger begging him to pick her up.  When I do get her she cries and pulls away.

It breaks my heart a little more everyday to go through this.  I know that she is only acting this way because she knows I'm taking her to bed and she doesn't want to go.  She no longer yells out "Bye bye Dada" because she's too busy crying that I've got her in the first place.

By the time we reach the bottom of our stairs and are in our hallway, she's over it.  Smiling and rubbing my cheek.  We go through the rest of our routine as sweetly as we always have.  But, I know the day is coming where she'll resist that too.  And it makes me sad.

There were a few days when I wasn't feeling that well that Roger took Kaelyn down to bed.  Those days she didn't complain about leaving the family room.  She would yell out "Bye bye Mama!" as they left the room.  She doesn't associate bedtime with Roger, so she didn't complain about it.  It makes me a little jealous.

Part of me selfishly wants Roger to be the one that takes her to bed for a while.  So her association with that switches to him and I'm the one that she runs to when she doesn't want to go.  It's wrong to feel this way but that's what I want sometimes. 

I don't want to give up our routine though.  While I have it, I want to keep it.  In the meantime, as she starts to resist, I need to think of new fun ways to transition her into bed.   It's hard for me to imagine that there will be a time when she just goes to bed on her own...doesn't want me to take her or follow her.  There will even be a time when she goes to bed in a house that I don't live in.  I can't imagine that will happen, but it will.  She's only 16 months old and already, I'm aware that one day she won't need me as much and she'll leave.  

How depressing.