Thursday, January 31, 2013

just keep blogging just keep blogging blogging blogging

Just when I think this whole growing-a-human business couldn't get more inefficient and body trashing, a few more of my body parts that tend to break after expelling the human have decided to break prematurely. So today I've been stuck in bed, trying to minimize the damage and just get to tomorrow morning when I can go to my doctor and request all of the drugs he has at his disposal.

I am really a sad sack lately, right?? Ugh.

But real life IS still happening, so I hear. I was lucky enough to talk to my mom twice this week, which is a huge deal since my parents are gallivanting all over Asia for a month and I miss them so much I.... nope, not going there. I'm just glad I got some time for my mom to pump me up a bit. She's kind of awesome at that.

WonderGirl is being such a freaking sweetheart lately. I don't know how I got such a high-larious daughter but I'm not asking questions, just in case it was a switched at birth thing and somewhere my real, sullen and selfish daughter is driving some poor brainy Brasilian family insane. Also, we all need to seriously limit her access to information about spiders because HOLY SNAP SHE KNOWS TOO MUCH ABOUT SPIDERS AND I DON'T WANT HER TELLING ME ALL ABOUT SPIDERS ALL THE TIME THEN GRILLING ME ON WHY THE CONVERSATION IS MAKING ME CRY AND CURL UP IN THE FETAL POSITION.

The Dude has had snow days wreck school for him twice this week and we have had a LOT of quality time. He is so bright, but SO 3 at the same time. I got out some number flash cards today and he was in a foul mood so he answered them wrong on purpose, them got furious with me for not correcting him.

I'm still terrified about bringing another boy into this family. I have a child with SPD, a husband with a family history of spectrum disorders and access to the interwebs so you know I am just a ball of nerves over here. Granted, the son I already have has very mild SPD and it actually just makes him an adorable cuddlebug but that hasn't stopped my internal AOOOOGAHH freakout alarm. I can barely handle the two of them between keeping up with their brains and constant demands to be fed. I'm seriously terrified.

Also, on an unrelated note, WonderGirl is on the last song of Suzuki violin book 1 and I'm tempted to take a break before heading into book 2 and do a few intense few months of nothing but bluegrass tunes. And maybe some mandolin... do they make 1/4th sized mandolins?

I hope you are not up to your eyeballs in snow and angst like I am over here. I am glad you are out there, though. My bloggity friends are the tiptop bestest.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

plan d

I had fully intended to blog today during the Dude's precious, precious nap time - but as I sat in front of my computer all I could think of was how depressed I am at the prospect of having this baby in a month. You'd think by the third time around we'd have some kind of game plan for dealing with my drug-resistant post partum nastiness, but no, I have even less hope than I did last time. There is no cure except living through it, and the reality of that crushes my chest until I can't breathe.

So I decided to forgo the blogging, since all it does is make me face reality and cry, and instead taught myself to play Lover of the Light by Mumford and Sons on the ukulele.

I think we can all agree that was a better use of all our time.

I'll attempt something mildly interesting tomorrow.

Thursday, January 24, 2013

I finally wear leggings out in public when it's 12 degrees and I'm 8 months pregnant. I make no sense.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

rants of the pregnant woman

I'm approximately one month from my supposed due date.  Whoopee.  I say approximately because I have what we call an "extremely comfortable uterus" that previous inhabitants have enjoyed so much that they overstayed their welcomes by over a week each.

By the way, if you have a daughter who forgets NOTHING, don't say anything about your "comfortable uterus" in front of her, because every time after that someone inquires about your due date in her presence, she'll loudly expound on her mommy's comfortable uterus.  EVERY. TIME.

Also, if this same daughter forgets nothing please do not look up tarantulas on wikipedia and tell her lots of wacky facts about their retractable claws (I'm looking at YOU husband).  Or how human's skin produces earwax.  Whatever, if we could just keep all the knowledge away from WonderGirl that would be awesome because the tarantulas with earwax are now giving me nightmares.

Anywho, this pregnancy has been like all my other pregnancies except now, at the tail end, I'm finding myself massively depressed.  Usually I'm fine through the pregnant-time and then as soon as the baby comes out I turn into a psychotic beast.  I'm not completely psychotic yet, but it is disturbing that I'm finding myself this depressed before the scheduled world-ending-postpartum-heck.  Yesterday morning I could hardly move I was so weighted with the demon that likes to live on my shoulder.  It's hard to even move my limbs I feel so weighted and sad.  Why, oh why is this a thing???

So before I started the day yesterday, I said a silent prayer that somehow, this weight, this stupid uncontrollable weight would be lifted just a little somehow.  I had a lot of errands to run and right after I drove up to the Dells to drop a friend off at work and right before I had to drop the Dude off at school and then go volunteer at WonderGirl's school, the car started shaking.  Yep, -2 degree weather, I had a flat tire.  I'm 8 months pregnant, barely dressed for the cold, the Dude is screaming in the backseat, the husband is at work an hour away and all I can think is I HATE WISCONSIN.  I don't know why my first instinct is to curse this state, but it is.  Remember Arizona?  It's kind of a theme of mine I think.

I tried to get the car to a gas station running at 2 mph, but when I got there it was sans air hose machine thingy.  The only thing I could do was curse Wisconsin and pray.  And call my friend Jenna whose husband works nights and might hopefully be still awake.  I found out later he'd been asleep since 4am but he roused up, put on his hunting gear and saved the day.  The poor man laid there on the freezing FREEZING ground and changed my tire - and then discovered once he got the spare on that it was FLAT TOO.  SERIOUSLY.  And then he and his sweet wife (she came along and her daughter entertained the Dude while we sat in their warm, wonderful van) drove me home so at least I could take advantage of our 3rd car, and get the rest of my day sorted out.

When the husband and I buy houses, we always get one extra bedroom than we need because we feel like it's important to have a guest bedroom.  And growing up with lots of old clunkers, I have the same attitude towards vehicles - we always have one more than we need just in case.  Why on earth our cars seem to crap out at the weirdest times is beyond my comprehension  but I don't think my backside has ever felt so relieved as when I got into the husband's latest obsession - a Jeep Grand Cherokee - and felt the heated seats kick in.  Well, maybe just as much as it did a little later when I got back home and used the bathroom.  Do you have a heated toilet seat bidet?  That's another one of the husband's obsession-driven purchases that I was completely wrong about and he was completely right about and I have no qualms admitting that.  It was -8 degrees this morning, you better believe my tush was grateful for that potty.

And you know, the rest of the day, the weight was just a little bit lighter.  I was so thankful to be in my warm house and not stranded out in the freezing wilderness that is rural mid-western Amerrrca that I was more relieved than depressed.  And kind of too exhausted to think.  Not exactly a step up, but I'll take it.

Seriously guys, I'm not ready for this baby.  Emotionally, spiritually, physically, mentally, everything.  I'm freaking out and my one lifeline - my mother - is galavanting all over Asia and I can't even call and have her come up with a game plan at our usual 6am call.  I need help.  I don't know what to do, but I'm afraid that if I'm already falling apart now, there's no hope for me once the baby comes.  I'm serious here.  I'm really, really scared.  THROW ME A BONE, INTERNETS.  TELL ME SOMETHING WILL BE OKAY.  Because I've done this twice and it was not even a little okay.

yes I'm being slightly dramatic.  But if you'd have ever witnessed the disaster that is my postpartum everything, you'd realize I am actually being restrained.  Go me.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

craze

I've been having a little crisis over here today - as I just spent every single day of the last year taking self-portraits and now I'm not.  It was this driving force - this thing that got me out of my dull housewife and mom gig and forced me to think about something beyond my life - and now - back to boring?

I posted my favorite 365 shots on Facebook and the one I took last June during a late night recording session with my band reminded the guitarist that he needed to get off his duff and record a backing track to a fiddle solo I sent him almost a year ago.  We bantered back and forth...


... and suddenly, without my very personal 365 project to distract me, I'm back to this sick feeling, missing my music roots back in Atlanta so much it physically hurts.

*sidenote - the song I was thinking we should mix up was Seize the Day from Newsies.  Don't judge me - we could totally come up with a rockin' Celtic version of that*

Anywho, I'm feeling slightly crazed right now.  I need an outlet, otherwise my life is taken up with dragging a screaming Dude all over town (all he does is scream whenever we have to go anywhere because he wants to go somewhere else), barely maintaining a household, trying to keep us all from getting the plague and being sick and pregnant - all while living in the frozen tundra of the midwest in a town with a population roughly the same size as the university where I got my masters.. . and since I went to Arizona State, the sobriety level is probably roughly the same too.   I NEED A DISTRACTION.  I need to create something.

But then there's the issue that my music taste is so awesome, I wonder if I'll ever create anything I love half as much as the music I curate.  Have I mentioned my absolute favorite album of 2011/12 was the Punch Brothers' Who's Feeling Young Now?  Because I could eat it with a spoon.  It.  Is. Amazing.  I can't pick a favorite track - though their cover of Kid A and their Movement and Location are up there.  I might pick this one - Clara - which is both possibly the most romantic song ever written and the greatest chord progression ever.  Plus the fiddle chopping.  UGH.  The Dude LOVES this song and sings the melody all the time.

 

What can't Chris Thiele do???  His collab last year with Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer and Stuart Duncan on the Goat Rodeo Sessions was so amazing that I can hardly see straight.

It's a blessing and a curse to have such incredible music at my fingertips.  Especially when I'm pretty sure I'm losing my mind in the desert of Wisconsin AND January.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

365 days 359-365

 1-8-13
My mantra, as explained here.
1-9-13
A little quality time with my mini-me.


 1-10-13
Sick.  I'm really done with this whole pregnant-and-everything-is-breaking-down-thing.
 1-11-13
I finished the video!!
 1-12-13
T'was the Saturday night before our anniversary, so we celebrated with a date, then I talked him into being in a shot with me.  Silly me, I didn't even think of using 4 fingers each - I was thinking 5+3.  Thankfully he's a much more balanced human being than I am.
1-13-13
I'm ridiculously into cereal right now.  And it kept me going all Sunday after the vomit-pocalypse all night.


 1-14-13
So I'm kind of madly in love with this shot.  I wrote in lipsick on the mirror (three times, I had to keep moving it to get the shot lined up right) then turned off auto focus and manually zoomed into the words on the mirror and reprised one of my favorite shots of the year in the background - although this time without the aid of a hair dryer.  It only took a few tries, but I am seriously feeling the whiplash today!  Still, it was worth it to go out with a bang.

I'm feeling... antsy now that it's over.  I'm really, really glad I did it and I do feel more confident with the camera.  You guys wouldn't believe the crazy things I had to do to get these shots - the precarious positions the camera and I sat in!  I'm ending the year MUCH easier than I started because now I have a remote and a tripod, but I'm seriously impressed with how much I was able to do by holding my arm out and taking about 70 pictures at a time.  I'll have to do an outtakes reel at some point - there are some hilarious gaffes in there.

And today officially begins my 365 family project!  I'm hoping I can talk everyone into a group shot every now and then... at least a decent doggie pile :)



Monday, January 14, 2013

every day i'm snarky-ing



This is random and I've posted it before, but it literally makes me guffaw every time and today started my brain wondering when exactly should I introduce my daughter to the awesome badness that is Newsies?  And Harry Potter for that matter - it's taking all my energy and strength to not talk about Harry Potter because I want her to read and digest it on her own someday.

Of course the rest of the universe has read HP, right?

Wrong!  Last week a friend posted on FB about how she was dying to watch the new Downton episode but her husband wasn't home and she had to wait - and since I was tired and super snarky at the time, I wrote her to not waste her time with the new episode, as DUMBLEDORE DIES.  I don't know why I thought that was funny (and still do) but it's an excellent example of why you should all be grateful I don't say EVERYthing I think, because it's all equally dumb.

Well, she apparently freaked out and called me the next day and told me I'd ruined the new episode for her because she'd never read Harry Potter and spent the entire time watching Downton Abbey wondering when someone named Dumbledore would show up and die and it totally stressed her out.  We had a good laugh - thank heavens - but it reminded me more than ever of how I'm just not all right in the head.  These poor kids.

Regardless - we can all agree that Christian Bale dancing Westside Story-ish to Party Rock Anthem is flippin' hysterical.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

eight whole years


Eight on Vimeo.

Yessssss!!!  The video, she is completed!!  It came together quite nicely and I think it goes along with the happy-go-lucky sort of year we had.  Last year I got to put the vid together right after some bad news about the husband's job, and it's a more subdued feel, like we were at the time.  But this sums up this year quite nicely.

You know, every year I swear I won't use Windows Movie Maker again because it's archaic and crashes constantly, but then I go on the hunt for new software and realize I'm lucky to be able to do what I do because I'm too dim-witted to understand any other videoing software.  We even have some high caliber ones installed and I tried and tried... I'm just too slow.  And if I use stuff for dummies, it doesn't let me customize it like I want.  They aren't the fanciest of vids, but I take a lot of joy in being able to time things right to the music and Windows Movie Maker lets me.  Sigh.

And onto something less dull... well, actually this is all dull.  My anniversary is upon us (obviously) and that was when I started this 365 self-portrait thing, so I'm 2 days away from being done.  It has been quite the challenge this year and I feel like I'm starting to get this photography thing just a wee bit more.  I've taken a lot of bad pictures, and composed a few really cool ones, but the nifty thing was that I managed to be consistent and do it every day.  I've even wondered if maybe I should keep it up for another year, but I got the impression from both my husband and my mother that they are sick of seeing pictures of me, so I'm going to modify it a bit and try and keep my momentum going.  The rules for the 365 club I was in this year were that I had to be in every picture and had to take every picture - so this year I'm loosening the rules for myself and am doing a 365 project on my family.  It'll be a really interesting year to do it, because we're going to be going through a huge life change in just over a month (OH BABY), so I can focus on documenting our lives as we transition through that.  I'm not going to keep the rule that I have to take every shot, either.  Just collecting shots, good and bad, composed and not, of our crazy 9th year.  This means I won't get to stay in the same club thingy I was since I won't be following the rules, but I hope I'll be able to keep accountable anyway.  You make me, m'kay?

And then I had another crazy idea.  How cool would it be NEXT year to do a project with the husband where we have to write and record a song a month??  I saw a blogger do a similar project so that in a year's time, she'd have a whole album done.  And the husband and I are always playing music and trying to meet somewhere in the middle of our two totally different musical backgrounds, so this could be super cool.  Although whenever we do record together, I stress out and he gets ridiculously impatient, so this could also be a super terrible idea, but why not??  We can take turns figuring out melodies and lyrics and see what happens, although this is NOT the year for it what with new baby and sleep deprivation.

Speaking of, I've been having nightmares about new baby life.  I really don't dig the uncertainty of when they'll sleep or eat and how I'm completely out of control for so long.  Last night the husband messed with our normal life and finished up a bunk bed for the kids.  They've never slept in the same room aside from vacations, and I was terrified.  We even put them to sleep separately so that ritual was going to be different too, and I was stressing big time, until I peeked in and saw this serene little scene:
Not only did they fall asleep almost instantly, the Dude fell asleep without a pacifier for the first time!  I'm always amazed by the husband's genius.  We went to sleep happy and thrilled.

Until 12:59am when poor WonderGirl screamed out that she had to throw up and we didn't make it in there in time.  She tends to throw up in her sleep pretty regularly whenever there are bugs going around and we always have a bowl next to her bed... except for last night which was our first time trying out this arrangement.  Le spew all over.  The poor Dude was confused by all the ruckus and somehow magically fell back asleep, even after the second explosion, and slept though the next dozen or so.   Our poor girl got put through the ringer last night, throwing up almost every half hour and then hour. I'd run to her bed and rub her back when I heard her throwing up and feeling her muscles convulse so hard like that broke my heart, even at 2am, 2:30am, 3am, 3:30am - you get the point.  She stayed home from church (obviously), and was in this state in the living room when I came home:
So I'm sleep deprived right now.  I still managed to make it to church and teach a lesson, so maybe there's hope for me for when this baby comes... although I'll have to try and feed and dress 3 whole children in the morning after tough nights with no sleep... eep... well, one day at a time.  And the photography thing will be a nice distraction, like it was this year, although it will be nice to not have to force myself to get in front of the lens.  I think I'll like a break from that.

AAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaand  I hope this far-too-verbose post makes up just a wee bit for how absent I've been.  Anywho, enjoy the video and hopefully, better heath than our family!

Monday, January 7, 2013

365 days 349-362 uh... that ain't right...

12-16-12
Eeep!  I was in bed and snapped this just before I fell asleep.  Yes, I was in bed that early.  Be jealous.

12-27-12
I'm having too much fun with this lens.  Check out that depth of focus, man!!
 12-28-12
Legos.  I learned that making an S in legos is VERY difficult.  But a duck is a cinch.

12-29-12
This was a quickie shot I took in the theater just before The Hobbit began.  Yeah, we got out and went to a movie!  It's even cooler that except for weekend nights, tix for all the first run shows are $5.  Nice, huh?
12-30-12
On my grand birthday shopping spree, I got myself this sweater that I positively adored and then LOST.  It's so soft and snuggly and soft and snuggly!!  We bought a new mattress after 8 years of sleeping on one that had two REALLY pronounced dents in it and the husband found this lurking in between the mattress and frame.  Oh happy day!
12-31-12
Yep, we watched an episode of Eureka on Netflix and were asleep by 10 on NYE.  I call that a win.  Have you seen Eureka by the way?  It's a series from the SyFy channel that's actually really good.  As long as you get past the interesting acting in the first episode - I was convinced they were all awkward Canadians, but they really came into their own and it's a fabulous show.

 1-1-13
We put up our luau decor (thanks to Aunt Jane!) and partied hard.  Or at least TRIED really hard to keep the Dude from popping the inflatable coconut tree.
1-2-13
Used the new lens to take a fun picture with the old one.  Which is still an awesome lens.
1-3-13
This is in my job description.  I checked.
1-4-13
At the hospital, listening to the fetuses random heartbeat. 
 1-5-13
I feel like my whole life is moving among this clutter that I have no idea how to control.  I don't even shop for things other than food lately because I have no idea where to put everything.  Where does that printer go?  Which guitar case fits that guitar?  And where on earth should all these books we don't ever read go??
 1-6-13
I got to snuggle with this sweetheart after church and then I got a NAP.  What a flippin' awesome Sunday!

 1-7-13
Hey baby - you listening??  I'm at 33 weeks now.  Ulp.

Also, it appears I have my numbers wrong on where I actually am.  I will hit 366 on Jan 15th... Aaron, Katherine, want to do the math and tell me what day I'm on?  :)

Saturday, January 5, 2013

So yesterday I went to a routine doctor appointment and 4 hours later I was discharged from the hospital after a bunch of tests because the baby was playing some kind of crazy game with his heartbeat. He's perfectly fine, and I'm just thankful the Dude's preschool has daycare so I was able to be 2 and a half hours late.

Also, I'm thankful for my iPhone and Failblog for keeping me amused and distracted. These are some of the intraweb goodies that kept me guffawing while sitting around, waiting unsuccessfully for this fetus to exercise his lungs. And since he didn't, I get to go to the hospital next week too. Woohoo.

And on with the guffaws!

HEAR YE. I need to document the fact that I ran 3 miles and didn't feel like death.  So just to make sure it wasn't a fluke, I did...